The holiday of the staff members of Russian libraries is celebrated every year, on May 27.
Scientific Library of South Ural State University is the biggest university library of the Ural region with a universal hybrid fund in 40 languages and a methodological centre for the libraries of the universities in the Chelyabinsk region, holding more than 2.5 million publications and more than 20 million licensed electronic documents in the web access.
According to the university’s development program and the society informatization trends, the library promotes the university’s competitiveness in the market of educational and scientific services, provides users with access to the world’s scientific and educational resources using information and communication technologies, and holds training events on navigating the information flows, learning the information search method, working with bibliographic data, which are organized by both staff members of the library and visiting specialists: representatives of the major local and foreign information products.
Taking the digitalization trend into consideration, the library puts more emphasis on granting access to the electronic information resources. The electronic catalogue of the library gives an opportunity to reach the full-textbooks, abstracts of dissertations of the university, as well as the materials about the university. Within the framework of the international movement for open access to scientific knowledge, the library developed the SUSU Electronic Archive, with more than 25000 scientific publications of SUSU. The library provides access to local and foreign authoritative information sources in remote access mode.
The library handles the services on providing users with printed documents in automated mode, which ensures the efficiency of the service and also allows users to monitor the status of personal electronic forms via Internet, for example, which publications are still in a reader’s possession and when they need to be returned.
The interlibrary and international loans are functioning at the library, and electronic delivery of documents is organized. One of the high-in-demand services is the virtual help desk.
The active integration of the automated library information system with the Univeris Corporate Information and Analytical System is underway. The processes of user registration with printing of library cards, providing of the information on book supply and compiling the lists of references for discipline-related work programs, registering publications by the university staff members, and other services are automated.
The library is in command of specialized equipment for inclusive education for people with disabilities.
The library building, Building 3Д, turns 35 years in autumn of 2020.
“We hope to celebrate this date together with our users: students and academic staff of the university,” said Svetlana Smolina, Director of the SUSU Scientific Library.