Our college has set up the library at the beginning of its establishment to facilitate curriculum and academic development. We began planning the construction of this library in early 2001 and it was officially opened in September 2002. The library is located on the 8th floor of China Civil Plaza, Alameda Dr Carlos D’Assumpção, Macau’s main campus, and is divided into book storage area, reading area and multimedia computer area. At present, the collection includes books, periodicals (including full-text electronic periodicals), newspapers, e-books and electronic databases, which mainly serve the teachers and students of the college.
The library aims to tie in with the overall educational objectives of the college, including but not limited to: supporting the academic research of teachers and students through the collection and use of books and relevant materials; providing teaching resources and services to complement teaching activities; providing appropriate social advisory services to achieve university education goals. With the efforts of all professional staff, the library has assisted teachers in independent research, instructed students on how to obtain and use information, and helped students solve learning problems, so as to give full play to the educational, cultural, informative and leisure functions of the library.
At present, the Alameda Dr Carlos D’Assumpção Library is not very big but has a full range of functions, including but not limited to book lending, designated consultation services (answering readers’ inquiries, recommending appropriate reference tools, guiding the use of library resources and providing research and consulting services, etc.), the use of electronic resources, and interlibrary lending and document delivery services with Macau’s comprehensive universities and public libraries (interlibrary lending and document delivery provide readers with books that are not available in our library for research and private learning).
The library has its own features among the higher education institutions in Macau. The first is that the collection of books in electronic information, humanities and management disciplines; the second is that books and information resources are more personalized; the third is that foreign languages (especially English) books and periodicals account for a relatively high proportion of electronic resources (up to 1/3). The fourth feature is that it has formed in-depth cooperation with Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area’s libraries (especially in the sharing of relevant electronic information databases) and realized the interoperability of book resources in the Greater Bay Area.
The Greater Bay Area’s libraries now have a collection of 3.88 million books including 2.65 million paper books, 1.23 million e-books, more than 11,000 kinds of electronic periodicals, more than 70, 000 CD-ROMs, 600 kinds of paper periodicals and 100 kinds of paper newspapers. They have purchased of 21 databases including blyun, Duxiu, China National Knowledge Internet which provide readers access to more than 6 million books, and over 410 kinds of Chinese and foreign language database retrieval and document delivery. The average number of paper books that each student from all majors can have exceeds 100, including more than 170,000 computer books, nearly 15,000 Al intelligent books, 246,000 management books and 132,000 engineering books.
The library will devote itself to expanding its collection and carry out interlibrary cooperation and resource co-construction and sharing with the famous libraries on both sides of the Strait, take the construction of Digital Library as the goal, constantly introduce new technologies at home and abroad, and provide high quality management and services to readers. With the expansion of the college’s curriculum and enrollment scale, the library will strive to provide all teachers and students with a new space for academic research and shared learning, and plans to open it to all local citizens in the future to give back to the society. Ultimately, we are committed to helping the college to achieve its mission.
The applicable targets and covering fields of literature information resources are wide. With the features of timeliness, practicality, and smooth information channels, information resources and their services are consistent with the objectives of teaching research, and can meet the needs teachers’ professional development, teaching and academic innovation, as well as students’ learning. The college will purchase no less than 90, 000 copies of books per year, and the cost of enriching digital resources will be no less than 500,000 per year, which ensures the continuous operation, maintenance and updating of books and digital resources.
According to the needs of teaching and scientific research, the library has purchased a total of 20 database resources, including China National Knowledge Internet database (CNKI), Duxiu Academic Search, Bailianyun Library system (blyun), Chaoxing Huiya e-Book (sslibary), New knowledge System, and so on, making possible the retrieval and document delivery of more than 6 million books, and over 410 kinds of Chinese and foreign language databases.