Up to now, the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST) library has gone through over a hundred years of ups and downs. Special collections, humanity services and modern facilities have made it a fascinating resort for the students of USST.
The main building of the Library and Information Center has been put into services as the new library building in July 2007. The opening ceremony of Zhan En Memorial Library new site was held at the ending ceremony of the first Monthly Service on December 8, 2009. The gross construction area of the new library building is about 23 000 square meters with the modern European Baroque style. It is a building with an eight-storey aboveground and one-storey underground. The rooms from the second to seventh floor are the large reading rooms and book-and-journal stacks. There is an academic hall and a large study hall on the eighth floor. Our library applies the management mode of “collecting, borrowing, reading, consulting and searching” integration based on its functions. It creates an atmosphere of “People absorbed into book, book standing by people”. Besides, owing to the modern facilities and the continuous innovation of the service mode, our library has become the document information resource center and the “clothing, food, teacher and friend” of the students in USST.
In 2010, we established the South Campus Library of USST as well as the Integrated Service Department of South Campus. The integrated reading room of South Campus was formally opened on September 8, 2010. It is a four-storey building with net area of about 2 000 square meters and provides the readers with more than four hundred seats and more than 100 00 books and periodicals to read. Thereinto, there are ten computers, more than 20 000 reference books and thirty kinds of newspaper with more than 100 seats at the third floor. The fourth floor is the study room with about 3oo seats. The first and second floors are used for the Chinese and foreign journal storage separately of about 70 000 bound periodicals in Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian and so on. The South Campus Library provides the readers with the wireless network signal coverage.
At present, there are one main library in USST at Jungong Road and the other five branches separately at Yingkou campus, Shuifeng campus, Nanhui campus, Fuxing campus and South campus of Jungong Road. Based on a hundred years cultural heritage and with the guidance of the principle of centering on the key disciplines construction and development, our library has established a comprehensive collection system with engineering courses as its major and coordinating with humanities and social sciences. Hereinto, there are certain characteristics on the collections of such subjects as the Power Engineering, Optical Engineering, Medical Instrument and Printing and Publishing Engineering and so on. Up to December 2010, there have been 81 735 foreign and Chinese bound periodicals, 964 currently ordered Chinese periodicals, 57 foreign periodicals and 104 kinds of newspaper. Our collection includes almost 1.2 million paper books and 3.25 million kinds of e-books. Our library has ordered 11 foreign electronic databases, 15 Chinese electronic databases and 3 video databases as well as a Self-Developed Master and Doctor Thesis Database of our university. There are 10 414 kinds of CD attached with books with 35 782 discs. The languages of the documents in our library include Chinese, English, French, Russian and Japanese. Our characteristic and comprehensive collection system supports to the teaching and scientific research of our university.
In our second century, the USST library is developing into the modern compound university library of teaching-research, digitization, openness and civilization with the starting of the new reform and development in our university. At present, the main library area is 19 00o square meters totally, which is divided into seven reading rooms based on their different functions. Our library has seven departments of the office, the purchasing and cataloging department, the circulation department, the periodicals department, the information department, the technology department and the reference reading room. Our library provides the services of borrowing-returning, reference reading, document information retrieval, science-technology novelty search authorization, document delivery, copying of document and printing and so on. Our library offers the courses of “Science-Technology Literature Searching and Utilization” to the senior students and the course of “Document Information Retrieval and Thesis Writing” to the postgraduates in our university. There are more than 190 PCs in our electronic reading room for the electronic document database retrieval and the internet information retrieval.
To accelerate the establishment of our modern library, on the one hand we maintain our traditional characteristics and concentrate on the establishment of the new professional books and periodicals; on the other hand, we enhance the establishment of the library network construction and the purchase strength of the electronic document resources. At present, we have purchased the following electronic databases:
Chinese databases: Online Lecture Hall (video database), China Sci-Tech Periodicals Database, Digital Periodicals, China Dissertations Database, Academic Conference Paper Database, Standards Database, China Journals Full-text Database, APABI E-books, Super Star E-books, Shusheng E-books;
Foreighn databases: Science Direct E-journals, Compendex Database (Engineering Index), Springer Link full-text electronic periodicals, EBSCO Host Database, ASME Journals Database, ProQuest Doctor Thesis Abstract Database and Proquest Doctor Thesis Full-text Database.
