Learning Commons – The New Focal Point
Opening in Phases
The Learning Commons was officially opened in a jubilant Opening Ceremony on March 26. Since its soft launch on February 1, the Learning Commons has been furnished and furbished step-by-step. For instance, you could book Group Study Rooms online starting February 13; on the same day the Information Desk opened for service. Soon after that, the two E-learning Classrooms were open in lab mode, so you could access the computers there even before the teaching facilities were fully ready. Whiteboards in Study Rooms, Classrooms and Idea Corner were installed in late February. The LG1 entrance started operation, which prepared the Learning Commons to open extended hours during weekends. The Creative Media Zone, operated by the Publishing Technology Center (PTC), was being equipped with a variety of media facilities. More and more services and facilities would gradually come in place.
Operation Hours
In regular weeks, the Learning Commons opens:
| Monday – Friday: | 8am – 11pm |
| Saturday: | 9am – 11pm |
| Sunday: | 10am – 11pm |
During the examination period (May 12-24), the Learning Commons will open until 6am. This Spring, the Learning Commons will also operate on ALL public holidays. For details about opening hours, visit Library Hours at http://library.hkust.edu.hk/about-us/hours/
Promotion Efforts
To introduce the Learning Commons to the HKUST community, the Library conducted a vigorous round of promotion to staff and students in January and February. Thirty groups of staff from various teaching departments, academic support units, and administration offices came to learn about the Learning Commons; representatives of the Students’ Union also visited. At the same time, orientation tours open to all students were offered from February 13 to 24.
Through proactive contact with our user community, the Library highlights the features of the Learning Commons, which aims at being the platform for active learning, and a hub integrating services from multiple units in the university. A few partnerships were formed during the promotion period; many collaborative projects are being investigated. You will see a variety of student-centered events and programs at the Learning Commons in the near future.
Making Good Use of the Learning Commons
The Learning Commons belongs to the whole HKUST community. The Library manages the service, maintains the space and facility; yet, each of us, either a staff member or a student, have a share in keeping it in good shape. While you enjoy the space and facilities, please help by:
- Enjoying your drinks and snacks in the Refreshment Zone ONLY; the rest of the Learning Commons shares the same food and drink policy as the Library
- Disposing of any garbage properly
- Using the computers, TVs and projectors conscientiously; ask for assistance at the Information Desk whenever you have questions
- Taking care of your personal belongings; reserving seats by leaving books or bags behind is not allowed
- Handling the furniture and equipment with care
Information and Contact
To find out more information about the Learning Commons, visit the website at http://library.hkust.edu.hk/lc/. For questions, comments and suggestions, contact Gabi Wong (lbgabi@ust.hk), the Learning Commons Manager.
Book Talks – This Month and Past
On 26 April , Professor LIU Tik-Sang of HKUST will give a talk about his newly edited book, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Local Communities in East Asia.
For the past several years, this concept has become more important in Hong Kong and societies in the region, and we expect that Dr. Liu’s perspective as an anthropologist will be valuable and interesting. The book is very much an HKUST book, for not only is Professor Liu an HKUST faculty member, but some of the contributors are as well, and HKUST’s South China Research Center was one of its co-publishers, along with the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
On February 22nd, Mr. Chandran Nair spoke about his recent book, Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet at the 8th in a series of occasional BookTalks given at HKUST Library.
Speaking to one of the largest crowds ever for a Library BookTalk, Mr. Nair discussed the fact that while many economists urge people in Asia to increase their consumption to help save (or revive) the global economy, this point of view refuses to acknowledge resource constraints and the negative effects of unrestrained consumption.
He asked rhetorically, “Can you think of any city in Asia that would be improved by adding more cars?” Another example he gave was how ridiculous it is that hygienic water supplies and sewage systems should still be lacking in nations where most people own a mobile phone, or even a smart phone.
Among his proposed solutions to the problems of over consumption, he advocated that resources should be priced more accurately (he considers most grossly under-priced) and stronger resource governance by Asian governments. The Q&A time seemed all too short, and many lingered on, to get another word with Mr. Nair. A video of the BookTalk is available at http://ustlib.ust.hk/record=b1162682.
Library Survey Results Updates
In the February Issue of the Newsletter we reported on the results of the Library Services Quality Survey which was conducted in Fall 2011. As a continuous effort to enhance our services, the Library has been following up on the comments collected from the Survey. We are now pleased to report the following progress:
Information Resources
- We are considering an increasingly popular way of buying e-books triggered by a preset number of visits to any e-book title. Patron-Driven Acquisition will let the Library satisfy user demand for items in diverse subject areas, based on demonstrated usage.
- Over 4,400 MyiLibrary e-books (http://library.hkust.edu.hk/cgi/db/myilibrary.pl) and Filmakers Library Online (http://library.hkust.edu.hk/cgi/db/flon.pl) (award-winning documentary films) are now available.
- The Library is creating a Leisure Reading corner on G/F, in response to increasing user demands for pleasure reading. The corner will provide a relaxing space for casual browsing of non-academic books.
Services & Facilities
- We are creating more online guides to help with the use of databases, including Bloomberg and Reuters.
- To meet demand for more Bloomberg workshops, two sessions have been offered to PGs enrolled in the Master of Science in Financial Analysis Program in the Spring 2012. In addition, six Bloomberg open workshops have been offered to UGs.
- We have added a link in each database guide to its corresponding database to make it easier to access.
- To enrich E-learning provisions of Library services and resources, we worked with CELT and ITSC to embed the “Library ToolBox” in LMES, presenting a menu of useful library resources from Facts and Figures to Research Guides. It also gives access to Citation Manager, Library Catalog, and PowerSearch for finding articles, and sending queries to a librarian.
- We reinforced our quality control to ensure that our Document Supply Service delivers high resolution e-documents to users. If needed, we will request documents be resent if time allows. For marginal cases or urgent requests, we e-mail users to seek feedback after posting to their ILLiad accounts.
- SmartCAT was improved, adding wildcard and genre keyword searching, and sorting by relevance, title and publication year. We also enhanced pagination, and fixed a search problem with Chinese author names. A new PowerSearch interface was released which greatly enhanced the one-stop searching of multiple Library subscribed databases.
- We increased the frequency of patrols at G/F in the early evening to monitor noise levels as you mentioned they sometimes cause nuisance.
- Students can now find more facilities in the new Learning Commons to support their learning and study. There are 80 additional computers (iMacs & PCs), 5 interactive projectors (with PC), 12 LCD TVs, 2 networked copiers/printers, more OPAC carrels, etc.
Media: Intimacy of Creativity 2012 Artists & Composers
First started in 2011, a second season of The Intimacy of Creativity http://www.ic.shss.ust.hk/2012/eng/index.html, is upon us (23 April – 6 May). Hosted by HKUST, it is an internationally-acclaimed, annual two-week partnership that promotes an intimate dialogue between composers and performers.
To celebrate the return of this music program, HKUST Library has purchased several CDs by the guest artists and composers. During this two week period, the CDs will be on display and available for loan in Media Resources on LG1 of the Library.
Service Updates:
The Library is always looking for ways to improve the services and facilities available to our users. Recently several changes have been made of which you should be aware:
Terrace Hours Expanded – The six outdoor terraces are now open during all Library hours. They will no longer close at 5pm. Feel free to use them for study, as a “Cell Phone Zone”, or just to take a break. There are two terraces on each of the Lower floors of the Library extension – one in the front facing the sea, and one in the back facing the lawn.
Date Due Slips Terminated – Due dates for all borrowed items are available in the “My Account” area of the Library Catalog. Unless you ask for it, the Library will no longer waste paper and effort stamping due date slips when you check out books and media; especially as due dates can change if another user requests the item (the Library will send you an e-mail). Always check your account at http://ustlib.ust.hk/patroninfo for accurate information.
Room Booking Rules Change – Many of you have asked us to limit how far in advance rooms can be booked online, as everything gets full quickly and some people were not using their bookings. We have now shortened the advance booking period from 1 month to 2 weeks, which should help.
HKUST Scholarly Publications DB
In early 2010, the then VPRD Office and the Library embarked on a joint knowledge harvesting project, with the goal of capturing the University’s research output for the implementation of knowledge transfer on campus. After almost two years of hard work by colleagues from the VPRG Office and the Library, and also by a team of programmers and student helpers funded by the VPRG Office, the University has successfully built the HKUST Scholarly Publications database, indexing more than 45,000 publications produced by the HKUST researchers.
In addition to searching their publications, this database also provides publications analysis capability, establishing author profiles for over 500 current faculty. The creation of author profiles is instrumental as it brings researchers’ list of publications, their bibliometrics such as number of times cited and h-index, and their research interests into one single interface. Content about patents, projects and awards can also be incorporated into the author profiles in the future.
After the release of the publications’ searching interface (http://spfind.ust.hk/) in early 2011, it is now ready to start releasing the Author Profiles. Ten such profiles have been publicly released for testing and you may preview these released profiles by going to this URL: http://spfind.ust.hk/spfind/AuthorProfile/SearchResult?searchField=allfields. The proposed plan is to soft launch the author profiles school by school in the coming few months so that faculty members can review their content and report discrepancies.
VPRG Office and the Library will continue to work closely to sustain this one-stop university-wide scholarly publications platform, with enriched tools to be used both internally by schools and departments for various analyzing and reporting purposes and externally by industries and researchers for knowledge discovery.
Collection Spotlight: New Databases
Filmakers Library Online
Online documentaries have arrived at UST! Award-winning documentaries worldwide are now available via Filmakers Library Online. Currently, FMLO holds close to 800 films produced since 1978. New titles will be added on a regular basis. Multidisciplinary in scope, the films touch on a good number of topical issues: race and gender, human rights, globalization, multiculturalism, environment, bioethics, and much more. Browse by topics or places, click on the play arrow and start watching. The default small screen display has the best video quality. Non-English films have English subtitles. Searchable transcripts accompany most titles. Thumbnails more or less function like a visual table of contents. Viewers can click on any thumbnail to jump from one section of a film to another. It is also easy to create a link to a video or embed a video in a web page.
MyiLibrary
With the recent addition of 4,500 titles, the number of ebooks on the MyiLibrary platform has grown to 12,500 titles. The majority of titles are in the humanities and social sciences that support general education and common core programs.
Career Insider and TERC
Career Insider and TERC (Testing and Education Reference Center) are two excellent tools for job seekers as well as students who contemplate postgraduate studies. The former contains over 100 fully downloadable ebooks on industries, companies, employers and general career topics. It also provides thousands of in-depth company profiles covering a broad spectrum of industries and professions. TERC gives a wealth of information on North American universities and offers online practice tests on TOEFL, GRE and GMAT. Both resources have abundant tips for writing winning cover letters and resumes.
All the above resources can be accessed via http://library.hkust.edu.hk/collections-resources/databases/.
Model of Jiaolong Deep-diving Manned Submersible
When you watch the news about the Shenzhou 5 space flight undertaking its mission in space, you may notice that there is a bathyscaphe named Jiaolong (蛟龍) diving in the deep ocean to explore another unknown world around us.
Jiaolong is a 
manned deep-ocean research submersible designed and manufactured by Chinese. It reached a depth of 5,038 meters in July 2011. The vessel has made China one of the few countries – with the US, France, Russia and Japan – that have independently-produced deep-water technology.
Now you can see a model of this submersible donated by Prof Qian Peiyuan in our Division of Life Science. The model is on display in the Learning Commons. Take this opportunity to learn more about the underwater technology that Chinese have achieved and watch out for the news of a 7,000-meter test dive of Jiaolong this summer.
Students Highly Praise Library Services
From 1 to 16 December 2011, the HKUST Students Union (SU) conducted an online survey among all students on services provided by SU and various University units. Students were asked to rate Very Satisfied & Satisfied, Neutral or Very Dissatisfied & Dissatisfied for each question about services provided by nine University units (ARR, CSO, FMO, HSEO, ITSC, ISO, LANG, Library, and SAO). Of the 19 questions covering different service areas, the Library’s score is significantly above the mean score for “Very Satisfied & Satisfied”; and well below the mean score for “Very Dissatisfied & Dissatisfied”.
| Very Satisfied & Satisfied | Neutral | Very Dissatisfied & Dissatisfied | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Score | 40% | 41% | 19% |
| Library Score | 67% | 26% | 7% |
The results showed that Library services and facilities are highly recognized by students. We are very pleased with the results and consider this as a great encouragement. We will continue to do our best to serve the University community.
Mobile Website / Digital Initiatives
A mobile version of the Library website was rolled out a few months ago, and we have recently made several additions and improvements to it. The room booking system now has a special interface for mobiles as does the Library Class Registration system. There is even a mobile version of the “My Account” area of the Library Catalog.
We are also creating links and information for which databases are mobile-capable. Some ‘just work’; some have special mobile entry pages; others may require an “app” for IOS and Android devices.
Point your mobile at http://library.hkust.edu.hk/m and see what we have that works best on your smaller devices. And be sure to tell us what you would like to see improved or included!
QR Codes – The Library is making use of QR Codes wherever appropriate. Codes have been added to the doors of bookable rooms. Scan the code on the door to find out when that room is available.
Don’t forget that IOS and Android apps are available with a custom interface to the Library Catalog, with maps showing you where each item is shelved (http://library.hkust.edu.hk/info/mobile.html).
last modified 21 December 2016