Issue No. 7 February 1993
Research Support
&Document Delivery
How does a new library attempt to lections; the use of a broad- based ap-satisfy the many and varied needs of its proval plan to quickly bring in current patrons when limitations of space, time, imprints as well as retrospective materi-staff, and funding mean that it cannot als; the purchase of journal backfiles; and acquire everything needed immediately? the borrowing of materials from other Some may think of a "research library" as collections. There are many items that a labyrinthine building stuffed with mil- are one-time needs for which borrowing lions of volumes, the "classics" of every makes better use of resources than pur-disdpline and decade upon decade of chasing. Getting the balance to work bound journals. But that is not the only right is not easy, but the goal is to own way, or even necessarily the best way, to frequently used materials (and those support research. Another approach, one needed items that other libraries won't well suited to a new library, relies on loan) and borrow items that are used only current technology and electronic tools to rarely. We believe it is not necessary to identify what has been published and is own every potential item needed now or available on a subject; as some items are in the future, but it is important to find needed, they may be acquired either by ways of accessing the items needed in a purchase or by loan. This certainly does timely manner.
not mean that the collection the library For many disciplines the journal lit-owns is unimportant, just that while it erature is the most critical. Most of the continues to grow, there are ways to journals currently subscribed to at HKUST supplement it. are available in paper from about 1990 At HKUST Library these methods in- forward. Prior to that date, journals oc-clude the use of block purchases of special quired are more likely to be in microform. collections, such as the Cavanaugh Chi- While we do not purchase back.files II
au-nese Collection, the Landmarks of Science tomatically" for each journal subscrip-and the Goldsmiths'-Kress microform col- continued on page 3
Collection Spotlight·· Cavanaugh Chinese Collection
The HKUST Library has purchased a collection of over 30,000 Chinese lan-guage titles collected from China, Tai-wan, Hong Kong, and South East Asia over a 30 year period by Dr. Jerome Cavanaugh, a Professor of Chinese Lan-guage and Literature now retired from Stanford University. Subjects covered are history (ancient and modem, memoirs,
local histories, overseas Chinese),
lan-guage and linguistics (dialect studies and grammars), literature (classical novels,
twentieth century fiction, drama from the Yuan dynasty to the present, poetry from the Shih-ching to contemporary poetry), economics, political science (Chinese Communist Party history, Nationalist Party, socialism, post-1949 political cam-paigns, works of Mao Zedong), art, ge-ography (better coverage of the south of China than the north), medicine, music,
natural science, philsophy and religion
(works on Buddhism, on Confucius, continued on page 3
Hovv materials are processed
A large portion of the items in the Library are received as part of an approval plan, a systematic purchasing plan for materials by subject, date, and publisher. Many other items are requested by faculty members or librarians. These are called firm orders.
The Acquisitions staff enter the initial order, verify receipt of shipment, and per-form the initial processing of each item. Checks are made to ensure we are not re-ceiving unneeded duplicates, purchasing funds are adjusted, barcodes are inspected, book plates are added, ownership stamps are applied, and the Main Catalog entry
changes from "Ordered11
to "In Process." Computer tapes of complete catalogu-ing records are provided for many of the books received. The Systems staff load these tapes when the items are received. Cataloguing staff then take the book and make sure that its entry in the catalogue is accurate and complete. Additions and
corrections range from creating
a
fullChinese language record to modifying a
location code for items placed in Reference or Media Resources. From there, the item's status is changed to "AVAILABLE" and it goes onto the shelves, ready for circulation. The entire operation of acquiring and processing material is assisted by an Inte-grated Library System, called INNOPAC. This ILS provides the means of ordering,
receiving, paying for, claiming, and
cata-loguing all library materials. In one pack-age, it has the tools needed to enable our
staff to develop and maintain a collection
of materials in support of the University1
s educational and research programs. The report feature of the ILS is used each month to generate "Acquisitions Lists" of material received. The Acquisitions List is then sent to faculty members who requested particu-lar items, to notify them that the material has arrived.
Bilingual Main Catalog
Our Main Catalog offers two parallel versions of our catalog: the English Version and the Bilingual Version. Both versions contain the complete holdings and records of the HKUST library. However, the bilin-gual version al also able to search and display records using Chinese characters.
English language, or "Romanized11
searches, con also be entered in the
bilin-gual catalog exactly as they are entered in
the English language catalog.
Using the Bilingual Catalog 1. Select "Bilingual Version11
from the MAIN CATALOG menu.
2. Select
a
Chinese input method for useduring this session. A total of four Chinese input methods are available. These are
Cangjie, Guangdong, Pinyin, and Zhuyin.
In addition, the Library is evaluating a
device for Chinese handwritten input. This
is set up on
a
PC on the ground flooras
youenter the Library. Please try it out, and leave your comments and suggestions on the notebook provided for that purpose. Your 'input' will be extremely helpful to our evaluation team.
*Throughout the session, observe the Sta-tus Line to identify the input method cur-rently active. To change thestatu.s line: Use Ctrl-Space to toggle between Chinese Input mode and Alpha-Numeric Input mode and Ctrl-Shift to select other input methods.*
3. Select
a
search method-you can inputChinese characters when searching the main catalog by AUTHOR, TITLE, SUB-JECT, or CHINISE CHARACTERS.
4. Press Ctrl-Space to change the Status Line to Chinese Input mode.
5. Input your Chinese search terms. 6. Press Ctrl-Space to change back to Alpha-Numeric In put Mode, and then press ENTER to start searching.
Happy
New Year!
Library Classes!
Library staff are eager to help you make more effective use of the Library's resources, especially its electronic re-sources. For the spring semester, training will be offered for individual classes or for small groups of students or faculty. While these sessions are usually more satisfac-tory if the participants in the group are in the same discipline, that is not required. If you would like to be included in a session in your discipline or if you would like to have your class attend a session tailored to a specific course assignment, please contact Danny Chin, Bibliographic In-struction LibrarianatLBDANNY or# 6752, or Terry Leung, Head, Reference Dept., at L BTERRY or# 6 7 51. Sessions will be offered in late Feb./early March; more detailed information will be available later.
Cavanaugh -continued from page 1
Mencius, Chu Hsi, Hsun Tzu). Approxi-mately 50 percent are from post-1949 mainland China, 17 percent from pre-194 9 China, 30 percent from Taiwan, and the rest from various other areas.
It will take us more than a year to catalog this collection. To date 1,000 have been done and are available for circulation. Examples include:
RS131.64.T35 1980 DS736.K73 1982 PL2461.Z6.L58 1988 and the 230 volume work
3IT 1-t 'i=l
~92_
f-t
~flj ,
which can be found as DS755.C457 1969.Research - continued from page 1
tion, we do acquire backfiles for titles that are important to a department's curricu-lum and research. The most effective procedure is for the department
as a
whole to agree on the titles and the most needed years, and prepare a list for library or-dering. These should be titles that will be used frequently by several people, not rarely by only one person. We hope that the Library Coordinators of each depart-ment will assist us in this.The HKUST Library
has approximately
2,500 paper subscriptions with another 1,500 full-text journals available elec-tronically, and over 34,500 accessible at the citation and abstract level; articles from thesemayberequestedonline. While we expect to increase the number of journals subsciibed to in paper format, accessing others electronically is an effi-cient use of funding and of space since only those items that are needed are used whereas bound volumes may consume substantial space for some items rarely, if ever, used. Since the HKUST Library started functioning, ithas been making use, not
only of locally held materials and items requested from other libraries, but also of special services that provide neededma-terials.
In 1992 this process was improved when the Internet made possible· cost-effective searching at the article level with CARL's "Uncover." We are in the process of developing
a
current awareness and document delivery database with Faxon Reserach and expect to greatly enhance this service in the near future. If you have questions about Interlibrary Loan, please contact Louisa Kwok, Ruth Miller, or Min-min Chang.We will consider your suggestions by e-mail, phone, in person, campus mail, or on the system, but something that needs attention quickly should be sen~Jl~ectly to Ruth Miller or Pabick Chu. ~~
