(Unila): Some students were seated seriously reading books in the quiet and comfortable reading rooms at the University of Lampung (Unila) library. They were spotted enjoying the circumstances of the reading rooms equipped with air-conditioned, wi-fi access, and surrounded by glass walls with a garden view.
During weekdays, the number of visitors to the library reaches some 1,000 persons a day, including students, academic staff, and those from other the campuses. Meanwhile, the visitors recorded trough traffic in the digital library are commonly much higher than those of physical visits as thousands of Unila lecturers have access to digital collections from distance using Unila’s single sign on the (SSO) feature.
Unila academic staff have privilege of accessing theses, journals, and numerous physical book collections with 29 thousand titles and 156 thousand copies, and diverse scopus journals and the latest books virtually through subscriptions to ScienceDirect, Westlaw, and e-books from overseas publishers IGI Global, Taylor & Francis Group, and Elgaronline.
In addition, Indonesian-language e-books are available in the Android and Windows versions of the Kubuku application which includes a collection of books from local publishers, including books by Unila lecturers.
The Unila library has achieved highly recognized accreditation since 2017. This indicates that the library has met the National Library Standards (SNP) in terms of services, cooperation, collections, organisation of library materials, human resources, facilities and infrastructure, budget, management, and library maintenance standards.
According to Kairudin, the library is now attempting to transform the collections to digital, such as services, lending, and storage of book collections, but scientific papers and student theses. Digital libraries are in need to address the demands of the times in strengthening services and facilitating access to information for visitors.
The Unila library has subscribed to a collection from the publisher ScienceDirect which provides scopus indexed e-journals for three fields of science, namely engineering, social science, and agriculture and biological.
Lecturers can access 783 scopus e-journals, including access to open access journals available in ScienceDirect. The library also provides academic staff and students with access to Thompson Reuter’s WestLaw collection particularly intended to meet the needs of the research and education of the law faculty.
One of the breakthroughs made by the Unila library to increase access to references and literature is to collaborate with the National Library (Perpusnas) through sharing resources. Currently, a system migration is being carried out from the Electronic Library on Web (ELIB) application that has been used by the Unila library to the Integrated Library System (INLISLite) application according to what Perpusnas uses.
The integration of the Unila library system and the National library enables Unila lecturers and students to access the book collections in the National library online, including accessing journals that have been subscribed by the National Library, including the EBSCO e-journal. The Unila library membership card should be valid at Perpusnas, and vice versa.
The Unila library is in an attempt to gain international accreditation, beginning with the involvement of Unila library in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), an international organisation for developing high-quality libraries and library services for its users.
This is an effort to expand the network and enrich the services offered to students, lecturers, researchers, and the general public. This step is believed to bring great benefits to the advancement of the Unila library to an international level. [PR Team]
