Achievements

With the increasing ubiquity and power of mobile technologies, the Library has actively embraced projects to provide convenient mobile access to information about library collections, facilities, and services.

In the past year, the Library rolled out a mobile version of the Library website.

In addition, we also rolled out a special interface to book Library Group study rooms on mobile devices and a mobile version for Library class registration. There is now even a mobile version of the ‘My Account’ feature of the Library Catalog. We have also created links and information on which Library databases are mobile-capable.

The Library will continue to strive to make using its services and materials on mobile devices simple and convenient.

Since 2010, the Library has worked with the VPRG Office on a knowledge harvesting project in order to create an HKUST Scholarly Publications Database. This database now indexes 47,000⁺ publications produced by the HKUST researchers. After the release of the publications’ search interface in early 2011, we started the process of having HKUST researchers review and finalize their author profiles on a school by school basis.

Author profiles bring researchers’ list of publications, their bibliometrics (e.g.,latest citation counts and h-index), and their research interests together in a single interface. By the end of June 2012, over 450 author profiles of the current faculty members had been reviewed, updated, and released to the public.

With financial support from the Provost’s Office, we digitized a large number of images from slides and negatives transferred to the Library from various university offices and rolled out the HKUST Digital Images database in November 2011.

The images cover a wide range of activities held on the campus from 1988 to 1999, including ceremonies, congregations, distinguished lectures, outreach days, exhibitions, as well as student and staff activities. This reformatting project not only preserves the images but also allows convenient access to the contents, and also allows HKUST students, faculty, and staff to tag photos for identification. We hope that all university community members will enjoy and use this resource preserve our memories.

During the year, the Library home page was upgraded and given a crucial facelift. Some features were added to help the Library website’s visitors access information more quickly and easily. These changes were in direct response to users’ comments in the LibQual survey, where they asked for less of a text focus, more graphics, larger pictures, among other things.

In addition, an interactive digital signage system was introduced in the year to assist library users to locate library services, rooms, and facilities more easily.

Over the years, the Library has developed different learning initiatives. In 2011, the Library introduced LibGuides, a Web 2.0 content management tool, designed specifically to enhance knowledge and information sharing. Since then, the Library has published more than 130 subject, course, and database guides on this platform, available to the University community.

Every year since 2008, HKUST Library has hosted an occasional series of Book Talks. These talks are designed to promote interest in reading among HKUST community members, and often showcase HKUST authors.

In 2012, the Library hosted two talks by HKUST authors during spring semester. The first one was given by Chandran Nair, adjunct HKUST MBA faculty and founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, on “Consumptionomics: Asia’s role in reshaping capitalism and saving the planet” on 22 February 2012.

The second talk was given on 26 April 2012 by Prof Liu Tik-sang, Associate Professor in the Division of the Humanities, who spoke on Intangible cultural heritage and local communities in East Asia. Both book talks were very well received.

As part of the ongoing efforts to build cohesive and friendly relationships with its users, the Library launched its Facebook Page in summer 2011. This page provides an engaging and participatory medium to communicate with many of our users. Since launching the page, we have already picked up over 1,150 “Likes”.

Upon Dr. Samson Soong’ retirement, Ms. Diana Chan, Associate University Librarian, became the University Librarian at HKUST, effective 1 July 2012. On that same date, Mr. KT Lam, Head of Systems and Digital Services, became the Associate University Librarian.

In light of these changes, the Library considered various options for an internal re-organization and agreed on a new structure which will be implemented in 2012-13.

It will divide Collection and User Services into two smaller departments and there will be some other reporting re-alignments. The new structure will have four departments: Access Services, Reference and Collection Services, Technical Services, and Systems and Digital Services.