Business Process Re-engineering
When the Library migrated the catalog to a cloud-based Shared Integrated Library System (ILS) last summer, we foresaw major changes in daily workflows. Starting October, we commenced three process re-engineering projects:
- Weeding process to withdraw low/no use library items
- Thesis submission process involving different departments and supporting units
- Electronic Resource Management (ERM) process covering acquisitions, cataloguing, and access workflows
We formed three dedicated project teams with cross-functional members to provide a more holistic review of the processes. The main objectives are:
- To review processes that have critical issues
- To enhance service standards and operational efficiency
- To improve cross-functional cooperation in delivering quality services
The JULAC Change Manager, Alan So, facilitated library teams throughout via process improvement and management workshops. Alan has helped teams develop process maps to understand existing disconnects and explore ways to improve processes:
- Rethink the handling of bottlenecks and reduce process waiting time;
- Ensure accuracy of information collected in the first place to eliminate additional redoing time;
- Provide a transparent environment across library functional units to reduce repetitive information checking and verifications;
- Challenge the existing workflow and remove any non-value-added process steps and handoffs;
- Check if all process variation can be standardized through simplification, regrouping, or elimination;
- Identify areas where SILS can facilitate better work processing and tracking of work status;
During the process, communication is most important in order to remove silos. So far, the Weeding Process Review is complete and the remaining projects are in the redesign stage. The Library will continuously apply the process re-engineering methodology and framework to enhance service quality to meet your expectations.
Celebrating Women’s Achievements
In 1975 the United Nations declared 8 March to be International Women’s Day. Since then this date is recognized by global communities coming together to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This year, HKUST has organized a series of activities to celebrate. One of these a Library book display to showcase womens’ accomplishments and struggles in the past, and to think about the opportunities (and lack thereof) available today, as well as the contributions that women will make in the future. The display highlights women’s work and achievements in science, technology, the arts, music, and literature; as well as in politics and labor.
Apart from books selected by librarians, some faculty and staff members were invited to make book recommendations and provide short Books for Empowerment videos sharing their recommendations. These include Prof Wei Shyy, Dr Sabrina Lin, Prof Angela Wu, Prof King Chow, Dr Jason Chan, Prof Coral Puig, Prof Pascale Fung, and Ms Diana Chan.
To celebrate International Women’s Day throughout the month of March and into April, you are most welcome to visit the Library’s book display to discover inspiring women’s stories and watch Books for Empowerment at https://iwd.ust.hk/. These videos are also available via e-boards and viewing screens throughout the Library.
Making Choices in Personal and Professional Life
Making choices in life has not been easy. When you choose one, you may need to give up another, whether they are personal or professional choices. How do you balance family and work life? Could you aim for career advancement without sacrificing personal and family commitments?
Dr Sabrina Lin, the Vice-President for Institutional Advancement, is constantly making choices in her life. With four children, she has still been very active in her IT career. Born in Hong Kong, much of her career has been in the US for Hewlett-Packard, along with two Silicon Valley start-ups. She also taught in HKUST’s Dual Degree Program in Technology and Management from 2010-2016. Before joining HKUST as VPIA, she was the Corporate Vice President, Commercial Business for Greater China at Cisco Systems. She was nominated as one of Forbes China’s Top 50 Business Women for 2017.
Using her personal choices throughout her tertiary education in Stanford and professional life as examples, Sabrina will share her thoughts on making choices in personal and professional life. She will share some of her tools in making choices, suitable for people in different stages of life. Please bring your general or personal challenges into this discussion.
Title: Making Choices in Personal and Professional Life
Date: April 23, 2018, Monday, 12:45-2pm
Venue: Multi-function Room, LG4, Library
ACS On Campus
The Library is collaborating with ACS Publications to present ACS on Campus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on 19 April 2018. This is an initiative of the American Chemical Society dedicated to helping students and young researchers advance in their research and career in the sciences (http://acsoncampus.acs.org/). There will be a half-day event on publishing talks, a science communications session, and a career panel discussion with a few ACS members who work in the industry in Hong Kong.
The program will feature world-class researchers, including Prof J Justin Gooding, Editor-in-Chief, ACS Sensors; Prof Prashant Kamat, Editor-in-Chief, ACS Energy Letters; and Prof Vivian Yam, Chair Professor, Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor in Chemistry and Energy, The University of Hong Kong. Prof Yam is also the Associate Editor, Journal of Inorganic Chemistry.
The event is free and open to all students studying the sciences. Other UGC students are also welcome! Grab this opportunity to learn from renowned researchers on how to advance your research and career and meet leaders in chemistry. You can also network with your peers and make lasting connections over networking breaks.
Registration details will be announced shortly.
BrowZine/PowerSearch Integration
Which journal platform best fits my selection? Embargo period? You don’t have to worry anymore! A new capability has been integrated to PowerSearch, so you can browse thousands of journal articles with a simple click.
Two types of BrowZine dynamic links:
A. “View Journal Contents” – open the current issue of the journal
B. “View Issue Contents” – open and highlight the article in the particular issue of the journal
Let BrowZine find the best choice for you!
Library Exhibitions – Old & New
Thanks to all of you who visited the Exhibition Happiness in the Making and joined the talks, demonstration, and guided tours. With a strong sense of intimacy for local viewers, this exhibition has received overwhelmingly positive response from HKUST and beyond. It has also attracted loads of media attention: 13 newspapers, TV, and social media reported the exhibition or interviewed the artist. Many visitors came several times not only to see the artist’s signature figurines, but to appreciate the unusual combination of arts and social issues. To see or revisit the exhibits, visit http://library.hkust.edu.hk/exhibitions/rosan-li/.
From 12 April – 18 June, the Library will present an exhibition on western calligraphy jointly with our Publishing Technology Center. Titled Crossing Boundaries: The Calligraphic Art of Manny Ling (飛越邊界: 凌文建書法藝術), it will feature over 40 glistening works of calligraphic and lettering art of Dr Manny Ling, a world-renowned calligrapher, designer, and educator. Dr Ling is presently the Program Leader for MA Design, Senior Lecturer in Design, Director of Studies for PhD research in Design, and Director for the International Research Centre for Calligraphy at the University of Sunderland, UK.
Dr Ling was born in Hong Kong and moved to England at the age of 10. Being Chinese and practising Western art and design, he is fascinated by the theme of “Crossing Boundaries” in his works. This exhibition will showcase his calligraphy across boundaries: handmade and digital, east and west, old and new, energy and stillness, simplicity and complexity, control and spontaneity, etc. The exhibition will also include a VR Corner where visitors can try out the Tilt Brush to write their own calligraphy.
Dr Ling will officiate at the Exhibition Opening together with our Acting President Prof Wei Shyy on 12 April. He will also give a public talk/demo, a guided tour, and a workshop on 12 and 13 April. Stay tuned for our announcements.
Scholarly Communications Seminars
Effective academic publishing is always an important topic for early-career researchers. On 10 April an academic publisher, Cambridge University Press (CUP), will conduct a seminar on Promoting your scholarship for early career researchers. They will introduce effective skills for promoting research and enhancing reputation.
This seminar will cover tips on writing good referee reports for peer review; services and tools for improving your writing; how to promote
publications via Google Scholar, Amazon’s author page, and your LinkedIn profile; how to identify and avoid predatory OA journals; and their green OA policy for journals. Online registration is available via https://lbcube.ust.hk/ce/event/5277.
In March, three professors from different departments kindly gave us brief talks on various topics about data management. In that Research Data Management (RDM) Seminar, Prof Gary Chan (CSE) discussed how to extract location data, and what we could do with it to enable smart applications. Prof Penger Tong (Physics) talked about the general practice and guidelines of how experimental data is managed in a research lab. Finally, Prof Xuhui Huang (Chemistry) showed us how his team handles largescale datasets generated by molecular dynamics simulations from high performance computer clusters to elucidate protein structure and dynamics.
Two librarians also introduced the resources and services, including Research Data Management (RDM Service Kit) and DataSpace@HKUST, that the Library provides to support your data management.
We were overwhelmed by the response and the venue was fully packed. The videos and presentation files of the seminar are available at http://lbcone.ust.
Library Talks Highly Popular
The Library has been busy for the last two months organizing a variety of talks to help enrich the cultural ambience of the campus.
On 27 February, over 130 staff and students joined University Language Lecturers Mr Alfred Tsang and Mr Nick Wong, for a stimulating talk about Kongish. Uncle Siu, a blogger who always hides himself in mystery, made his surprising appearance to moderate the talk. It was an amazing session. Everybody was thrilled by their humorous discussions and dialogue.
A public lecture on The Humanity in Literature (文學人性論) was held on 2 March. It was coorganized with IAS, School of Humanities and Social Science, and Division of Humanities. Prof Zaifu Liu (劉再復) and Prof Lianke Yan (閻連科) shared their unique and unusual analysis of the humanity found in Chinese Literature. It attracted over 220 enthusiastic attendees. The audience was greatly enriched by the two masters’ academic and intellectual insights.
For the first time, the Library co-organized with The Center for the Arts to present four Silk Road Talks in the Arts Festival 2018. On 15 March, Italian journalist Gabriella Bonino gave a contemporary account of her journeys along the Silk Road. The local writer Cheung Shin Yee, discussed the history of the development of the Maritime Silk Road by the great explorer Zheng He on 20 March.
Indian writer and reporter Mishi Saran shared her Journey in the Footsteps of Xuanzang on 22 March. And on 27 March, Japanese art historian Yuka Kadoi talked about Islamic Chinoiserie, a new style of Islamic art. These talks were fascinating in recalling the once vigorous artistic and cultural scene of the Silk Road.
The Library also co-organized two talks with the Division of Humanities. On 22 March, Professor Wang Qianjin (汪前進) from the Chinese Academy
of Sciences gave a talk titled 明洪武年間繪製的一幅 巨型彩色世界地圖: 大明混一圖 (The Composite Map of the Ming Empire). The audience was deeply inspired by Professor Wang’s vivid explanation and the visual beauty of the images shown during the talk. On 28 March, Professor Martin Jones, a world renowned archaeologist from the University of Cambridge, discussed Food globalization in Prehistory. Professor Jones showed the interconnections between food, migrations and societies across ancient Eurasia, impressing the audience with the relevance of these past trends for the understanding of our present and future food ways and societies.
Library Photo Contest!
Whether you are a photo or Library enthusiast, we love seeing the Library through your eyes. Let your creativity shine and join the first HKUST Library Photo Contest now. All HKUST current staff and student members (excluding Library staff, adjudicators and their family members), are invited to submit photographs that capture “Day & Night @ the Library”. The photographs can be taken inside or outside the Library, but need to feature the Library itself and/or show how you, your friends, or your family connect or interact with the Library.
Submitted photos will be uploaded to the Library Facebook Photo Contest 2018 album (www.facebook.com/pg/hkust.library/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1493273144054621) with hash tag #hkustlibraryphotocontest2018 for the public to view as well as vote for the Most Facebook Likes award.
We are very glad to have Prof David Cheng CHANG (Humanities), Prof Agnes Ku (Social Science) and Mr Spiro Kwok (Photographer, Publishing Technology Center) joining our adjudication panel. Grab your camera or mobile phone, take photos when you visit the Library, during the mid-term break or Easter & Ching Ming holidays, and submit your entries by April 18 Wednesday. Also remember to invite your friends to like your photos by April 20 Friday.
Submission procedures and terms can be found at http://library.hkust.edu.hk/about-us/user-engagement/photo-contest-2018/. We look forward to seeing your photo entries!
last modified 06 April 2018