Achievements

The Research Carrels Replacement Exercise finished. On LG3, the new carrels were ready by spring 2021 and the ones on LG4 a few months later. These 400+ new study carrels with modern and vibrant design were in high demand throughout exams and the Spring Term.

Sustainability efforts included recycling the hundreds of 30-year-old wooden study and computer carrels being replaced, with 54 metric tons diverted from the landfill.

In 2020-21, we made 35 posts on a wide variety of topics, built staff capacity in Research Data Management (RDM), and increased the number and types of instruction offered to HKUST researchers.

The Research Support team helped in various ad-hoc tasks and collaborative projects. The major ones included:

• Working with VPRDO and APTL to build a portal website on research integrity and ethics
• Responding to RGC’s OA consultation in multiple rounds
• Upon VPIA’s request, we helped them build a global researcher talent pool for recruitment purposes in Guangzhou campus

Library Systems staff completed 54 projects in the year. The major focus was to further enhance workflow automation. Notable projects included the  Financial Management System/Alma invoice payment integration, thesis processing and publishing, and workflow of processing accepted manuscripts for the SPD Institutional Repository. The results helped save many staff hours.

Especially noteworthy was how Systems added an Artwork Collection to the Rare and Special E-Zone by feeding metadata from Alma and linking it to the images of the artwork.

The Library added new self-service tools to help library users maintain a safe & secure environment: UV-C Book Sterilizers and short-term storage lockers.

Proactive measures were taken to protect the safety of users amid the pandemic.  Extensive and frequent furniture and signage shifts were required to accommodate changing social distancing requirements.

• We modified the seat numbers and spacing as required by government and health regulations.
• We kept study rooms in the Learning Commons open, while closing all other study rooms in the Library.
• The G/F thermal sensing unit was ceiling mounted and another one added to the Learning Commons entrance. The less obtrusive ceiling mounts make a more pleasing and welcoming atmosphere at the entrances.

The Library hosted a variety of iTalks in 2020-21. Some were hybrid (live speaker presenting , plus Zoom) and others, Zoom only. Over 1,000 participants joined these talks. More than 96% (710/735) of survey respondents said they “strongly enjoyed” or “enjoyed” the events. Some were purely via Zoom and others were more hybrid: speaker + camera and Zoom.

• September 24, 2020 – The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia / Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten; 118 attendees
• October 8, 2020 – 運動+ 營養 : 講是又講非 / 雷雄德, 林思為; 219 attendees
• October 29, 2020 – Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life / Professor Eric Nelson (HKUST); 82 attendees
• February 25, 2021 – 死亡解剖室：屍骨給我上的一堂課/ 李衍蒨; 231 attendees
• March 11, 2021 – Going Beyond Boundaries / Jeffrey Andrews; 158 attendees
• March 26, 2021 – 化妝品小科普及抗菌護手霜的研發 / Professor Marshal Liu (HKUST) & Vanessa Ho; 169 attendees
• April 8, 2021 – Are You with Me? : Kevin Boyle and the Rise of the Human Rights Movement / Mike Chinoy; 87 attendees

The Library also mounted 4 new exhibitions, some with associated talks and tours.

• Between Europe and Asia: Traditional Music and Costumes from Central Asia, Caucasus and the Middle
  East (Mar to Oct 2021)  + 1 guided tour
• China in Antique Maps (Nov 2020 to May 2021)
• Yi – Aurora Photography Exhibition of Anthony Yau (Oct 2020 to Feb 2021) + 2 talks & 34 tours
  
• Glimpse into the Past: Chinese Seals and Seal Impression Catalogues through the Dynasties (May to Oct 2020) 

The Library signed its first “publish & read” transformative agreement with the Cambridge University Press (CUP). Now, HKUST scholars can publish “gold open access” with 370 CUP journals, with the article processing charges waived.

• Supports open access (OA) publishing by effectively removing paywall restrictions.
• Raises the visibility and impact of HKUST’s research content.
• No quota on the number of papers by HKUST authors that can enjoy the APC waiver.
• Waiver is valid for papers with acceptance date between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023.

Planning for the GZ Library was intense, including building design, moving books from CWB to GZ, preparing tenders, new purchases of print and e-resources, and recruitment of staff.

Library staff held frequent zoom meetings with KPF, the designers for the GZ library building. Library staff made plans to move duplicate or earlier editions of sci-tech and business books and journals to GZ and to buy 100,000 new e-books and ~50 databases.

HKUST Library staff also worked in the hiring process for new GZ Library staff and to prepare tenders for techinal systems.

In 2020-21, the Special Collections enlarged its collection with 216 maps, additional atlases, and books. The arrival of a restored ancient Chinese map, “Complete Geographical Map of the Everlasting Unified Qing Empire” (大清萬年一統地理全圖) further enriched the collection. Selected maps acquired in recent years have been digitized and uploaded to the Rare & Special eZone for online access by the global public.

The Library began extensive planning and preparation for the developing of the Guangzhou Campus.  Library staff have participated in planning with senior university administration, senior faculty members of the Hubs and Thrust areas, other service units (e.g. ISO, ITSC, MTPC, etc.) and the architects.  We have laid our concrete plans and timelines for creating  the physical and cyber infrastructure  for service delivery as well as the physical and online collections to support HKUST-GZ’s teaching, learning, and research.

As part of our continuing efforts to provide service excellence to the University community, the Library conducted a  LibQUAL+^® Suvey for the 4th time, from 28 October to 1 December 2019. The previous surveys were done in 2007, 2011, and 2015. This year’s LibQual  was a joint project of 5  of the 8 JULAC libraries), which can also give a comparative analysis of our services with our peer institutions in Hong Kong.  Go here for more details.

Compared to the scores obtained in the past 3 Surveys, we have improved our services since 2007. In 2019, the Library achieved the highest Perceived Mean Score of 7.11, and the smallest gap in Superiority Score of -0.36.

This year, we emphasized user safety to protect against COVID-19. This included:

• Extensive & frequent furniture and signage shifts  to accommodate changing opening hours and service modalities (due to protests and the COVID-19)
•   70% of seating was removed from public access areas, with the numbers going up and down as the situation altered. 
• Front-of-house was converted to a book lookup and pickup station with user-facing UV-C sterilizer (for a few weeks)
• Collaborating with HKUST’s fever self-check team to install an automated thermal sensor system at the Library entrance

The Library gave strong support for HKUST for RAE 2020 by coordinating the bibliographic preparation in the year leading up to the final submission. Over 20 library staff members plus 4 student helpers participated in the project, which was in full force (“full gear”) from May to December 2019.

Three teams handled the full text, metadata and copyright clearance for:

• 1,625 research outputs
• 200 underlying references for impact case
• 20 book titles (80 copies) for physical submission.

After assisting in the consultation on the Archives Law in 2018-19, the Archives played an active role in the implementation of the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system in the university by drafting the University Records Retention and Disposal Schedules and reviewing the Guidelines on Electronic Records Management as drafted by ISO. Briefing sessions were conducted to solicit feedback.

In collaboration with FYTGS, ARO, ISO and the Library thesis team, we developed a unified Thesis Submission System to facilitate the implementation of the new e-copy only policy.

Starting in Fall Term, RPG students can use this new system to submit their theses, which will then be deposited to the theses repository as the official version. This system is a part of the Unified Submission System Project, to streamline not just the submission of theses, but also research datasets, management plans, and IR documents.

After much research, product evaluation, and automation programming, the library Systems unit launched the enterprise-level Library Data Analytics Platform in March 2020.  It provides interactive data visualization and analytics functionality to support the Library’s data-driven decision making needs and generates charts.

• Seven dashboards were rolled out in the first batch & more will be added  in the coming year.
• By adopting an open source software for the Platform, we saved HKUST money.

In 2020, the e-book collection (893,500 titles) overtook the print book collection (735,000 volumes).  This growth has been part of the Library’s strategic plan for more than 5 years. E-books have made it easier for HKUST students and faculty to get the materials they need for learning and research, even when the Library was shut down because of Covid19.

In 2018, the HKUST community’s e-book usage surged 23%, reaching 99 chapters per student FTE.

This increase in e-book chapter access reflects the Library’s efforts to continue to increase the e-book collection. July 2018 also marked the crossing point where the number of e-book titles (574,207) in HKUST’s collection topped its paper book collection (529,288).