We try our best to improve the facilities & services of NUS Libraries to meet your needs, here are some of the improvements and changes we made since the new semester began on Aug 2013.

1. More powerpoints in Central Library

Table in the Bound Journal Section,   Central Library, Level 5

In our library survey done earlier this year, the lack of powerpoints in Central Library for charging of your laptops, tablets & smartphones was a common issue mentioned.

This was a very difficult problem to solve due to the age of the building which made upgrading to support more power difficult , but we finally achieved this with the help of the Office of Estate and Development (OED), and now every seat in Central Library Level 6, and most seats at Level 5 come with a powerpoint each.

2. Availability of scanners

Besides power points, the lack of scanning services in the library was also mentioned in our survey. Again, you asked, we listened and responded.

As of Aug 2013, Scanning services are available at the photocopy rooms of

• Central Library
• Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library
• Science Library
• Medical Library
• C J Koh Law Library (near the networked printers)

More details can be found at http://libfaq.nus.edu.sg/a.php?qid=150390 , but do observe the copyright regulations when using the scanners.

3. Books dispenser at UTown

Our book dispenser, NUSL Express at University Town 

We have installed a new book dispenser at UTown so you can borrow selected books 24/7! You can not only borrow books but can return books there but it only accepts books borrowed from the book dispenser. To find out what is available for borrowing at the machine, search FindMore and restrict the search under “Library Location” to “NUSL Express”.

How to search for books available at NUSL Express at University Town 

Refer to our FAQ <http://libfaq.nus.edu.sg/a.php?qid=479928> for more details.

4. Improvement to library search – FindMore@NUSL

 Since the final launch of FindMore@NUSL, we have not rested on our laurels and continued to try to improve the system. Among many changes, one recent change was making finding online standards in British Standards Online a lot easier.

How to search for British Standards in FindMore@NUSL

You can now enter the full standard code (e.g BS EN 62034:2012) and preferably the title into FindMore and if the item is available in British Standards Online, it will now show up in FindMore@NUSL.  Clicking on the result will bring you directly to the online standard.

To improve the precision of the results, you may need to act quotes around the search and/or refine to “standards” under “Content Type”.

Another bigger piece of news is that we are currently testing a new version of FindMore at http://nus.preview.summon.serialssolutions.com/

The new preview version of FindMore.

Among some of the new features includes

• A new discipline facet (e.g. Economics, Psychology) to refine your search
• Grouped newspaper article results to help you focus on the types of content you want
• A new advanced search which allows you to do controlled searching by specific fields such as subject term, author, title, publication title, doi and more.

The new preview advanced search of FindMore.

It’s still in the test phase, but you can be the first to try it out at http://nus.preview.summon.serialssolutions.com/ and let us have your comments  at https://esurvey.nus.edu.sg/efm/se.ashx?s=2891D03D0A7B4AB3

Conclusion

 We hope you are excited and happy with these improvements. Of course this isn’t the end, and we are still working through and studying the tons of feedback you gave us during the library survey earlier this year and hope to put in place more improvements based on your feedback.

Aaron Tay

NUS Libraries