What is ILLiad? I bet this question comes to most of your minds immediately when you read the title. It is our interlibrary loan system used since 2004! ILLiad is totally separate from the operating system we used in managing the Library. Each user has to register as an ILLiad user before placing a request and we staff have to install its software in order to process your requests. Do you remember this login page? As of 30 May 2025, we stopped receiving new requests through ILLiad. After wrapping up with outstanding requests, ILLiad finished its 21-year service for our library in June 2025. Let’s give a big hand to ILLiad for serving our community for over two decades! What’s new?

I am thrilled to share my experience about my first project in the library: the Library Material Pickup Station. It feels like a significant milestone in my career. As an alumnus of HKUST, it feels surreal to be back as a worker in the library, which I once relied on so much. When I first joined the library, I felt both familiar and strange. Stepping in as a staff member was a different experience, diving into a new role made the familiar feel almost foreign. After 3 months of training, I got to know the library’s operations and was finally assigned to a project to implement the Library Material Pickup Station. Taking on this responsibility has been quite exhilarating. Throughout the project, my colleagues and I brainstormed many ideas and planned out every detail to ensure the Library Material Pickup Station runs smoothly. The most memorable moment during this project was when we discovered an issue with the default settings of the station. If users had even 1 dollar in overdue fines, they were not allowed to pick up any books from the station.