Information Center - Library (VNU): Ready to welcome new students

Deputy Director of Information Center - Library Vu Thi Kim Anh

USSH students' visits to LIC's digital library are the highest at VNU

Could you please briefly introduce the Information Center - Library, VNU and the system of documents related to the field of social sciences and humanities at the Center?

Established in February 1997, after more than 20 years of construction and development, the Information - Library Center (Center) has become the leading library in the country. The Center is responsible for providing information - library services, products and documents to all staff, lecturers and students at Hanoi National University. The Center has a system of Information Service Departments including 4 departments located at training facilities and dormitories of Hanoi National University, including: General Information Service (No. 144 Xuan Thuy, Cau Giay); Foreign Language Information Service (No. 2 Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay); Natural Sciences and Social Sciences Information Service (No. 334 - 336 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan); Me Tri Information Service (No. 182 Luong The Vinh, Thanh Xuan).

Students research at the Information Center - Library

The center currently manages more than 7,000 m², of which more than 4,800 m²is the area for readers and the document storage with thousands of bookshelves, more than 1,200 seats. The Center's technical infrastructure includes a cluster of 15 high-configuration, modern, high-performance servers; 250 workstations with an intelligent network system with a connection speed of 100/1000 Mbs and 02 Scanrobot 2.0 MDS Treventus digitizing systems; a smart library equipment system including magnetic gates, 24/7 book receiving and returning machines, self-checking machines...

Regarding printed documents, the Center currently has 114,000 book titles (400,000 books), 400 journal titles. Regarding digital documents, the Center has 55,000 digital learning materials (textbooks and e-books), 31,000 theses, dissertations, 2,000 scientific research topics. In addition, the Center also has exogenous digital documents with 53,000 e-books, 4,100 e-journals from the databases Springer, ScienceDirect, Bookboon, Mgraw-Hill; 10 accounts from the National Center for Science and Technology Information (can access other databases).

Regarding documents on Social Sciences, the Center has 7,788 endogenous digital document files (theses, dissertations, scientific research topics...); 4,120 textbooks, 9,274 reference documents in the subject database.

In terms of ranking the internal document digital libraries of Vietnamese universities, the Center ranked first (in 2019), ranked 75th in the world (May 2020).

General reading room at Information Center - Library

It is known that last year, the Center had many innovative activities such as digitizing learning materials, supplementing books and learning materials. So can you tell us more about this innovation?

Implementing the digital transformation policy of Hanoi National University, since the beginning of 2019, the Center has strongly promoted the development and service of digital libraries. Specifically, promoting the digitization of existing documents in the Center's book warehouse and documents collected from training units under Hanoi National University; at the same time, building a database of digital learning materials (textbooks, reference books) for all majors of 12 training units. Thanks to that, Hanoi National University staff and students can easily exploit documents by major and subject on computers and phones anywhere, at any time.

In addition, the Center also strengthens communication activities, especially during the period of social distancing due to the Covid-19 epidemic, so that a large number of staff, lecturers and students of Hanoi National University can access digital learning resources to serve their learning, teaching and research needs. In addition, the Center actively introduces and guides staff, lecturers and students of Hanoi National University to install and use e-book reading software using the VNU LIC app on mobile devices such as laptops, phones and tablets.

The effectiveness of the above-mentioned main activities is that the number of digital library accesses increased impressively in 2019, reaching 5,524,735 visits (2018 reached 2,991,784 visits), especially in which the number of visits from students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities was the highest in the Hanoi National University system with a total of 242,388 visits, an increase of 11,576% compared to 2018 (2,076 visits).

How do you rate readers' satisfaction with the quality of activities of the Information Center - Library recently?

At the end of 2019, the Center conducted a survey on the amount of knowledge of students at Hanoi National University with the participation of nearly 4,000 people. The results showed that 49% of knowledge students get from the library; 40% of knowledge is received from lecturers and 11% is from other sources. In terms of satisfaction, more than 90% of readers participating in the survey were satisfied with the quality of the library.

Automatic book return system at Information Center - Library

Create the best conditions for new students

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities has just welcomed more than 2,000 new students. What has the Information Center - Library prepared to welcome these students?

To welcome students of the QH-2020-X course, the entire Hanoi National University in general and students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in particular, the Center has actively implemented the following tasks: Sending official dispatches to all training units from the beginning of July 2020 regarding the request for coordination in implementing library service work for the 2020-2021 school year; proactively proposing to work with leaders of all training units in Hanoi National University to discuss and agree on the content and process of coordinating the implementation of library information service activities, especially the development, promotion and service of digital learning materials. The Center also contacted the student management departments of the schools to agree on a plan to guide first-year students in using the library, prepare facilities, equipment systems, internet, reorganize document storage, update necessary content for new students on the website and print 12,000 leaflets to distribute to first-year students. As for the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Center sent a soft file of this content to integrate into the school's Student Handbook.

Group study room at Information Center - Library

Can you be more specific about the incentives for new students?

The Center devotes all resources and creates all conditions to provide documents and services to students. Specifically, with digital documents, students are given accounts and have the right to exploit all these document sources anytime, anywhere. With printed documents, each time students can borrow 8 textbooks (150 days/book), 3 reference books (10 days/book) at all 4 Information Service rooms of the Center.

Students can use the VNU LIC app installed on their phones instead of plastic cards to check-in at the library, or even borrow printed materials if the Center has received student data from the training unit. And of course, they can use the Center's library space for free.

Textbook lending room at Information Center - Library

With such innovation and careful preparation, how do you expect the Center to meet the learning needs of students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities?

The Center has made great efforts to innovate, however, in order for the effectiveness of those innovations to be as desired, the Center really needs the support of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. I hope that, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the University, in the coming time, the number of digital library uses in 2020 will not stop at 243,388 as in 2019. In my opinion, synonymous with this increase is the acceptance and satisfaction with the ability to meet the needs of students in general and students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in particular of the Library Information Center. And this is our joy.

Thank you very much!

Refer to information about services at LIC