UP students, faculty, and researchers will soon have more library resources at their disposal. The University is currently at varying stages of procuring and deploying database subscriptions to enhance its library capabilities for remote and teaching and learning (RTL) across the UP System.
This was disclosed by UP Diliman (UPD) University Librarian Elvira Lapuz in her presentation during the University’s report on its roadmap for Academic Year 2020-2021 on January 11 via Zoom.
According to Lapuz, four criteria guided the selection and evaluation of electronic resources for acquisition: content and source reliability; usability; vendor support; and, pricing models. These criteria were culled from the University Library Collection Development Policy v. 2020.
OpenAthens, “an authentication system for accessing electronic resources”, will be individually subscribed to by each constituent university (CU), with the UP System funding all subscriptions. Lapuz’s predecessor, Prof. Chito Angeles, who made the next presentation, said that OpenAthens has already been deployed in UPD and UP Los Baños. Full implementation across the UP System is expected by February.
Lapuz said subscriptions under the UP System were ScienceDirect and Scopus. Most, if not all CUs, recommended 11 additional databases for subscription by the UP System. These were: EBSCO Academic Search Complete; Cambridge Core; Emerald Premier with Access in Perpetuity; Gale Reference Complete; Global SpringerNature eJournals; JSTOR Arts and Science I-XI; Philippine eJournals; Project Muse Premium; ProQuest One Academic; Taylor & Francis Social Sciences and Humanities Collection; and, TurnItIn. On top of these, JoVE Unlimited will also be subscribed.
Prior to Lapuz’s presentation, Vice President for Academic Affairs Maria Cynthia Rose Bautista said that UP President Danilo Concepcion was also pushing for a subscription to Web of Science.
Training for faculty, librarians, and staff on these new databases is scheduled in February; while training for students will be in March.
Angeles, meanwhile, gave updates on UP’s initiatives on library automation. Aside from OpenAthens, he talked about Tuklas and OneLib. Tuklas is the “discovery service platform” he developed to improve upon the existing library search system. It was launched in UPD in July 2020. He reported that the union catalogs and local databases of the other CUs will soon be integrated in Tuklas.
OneLib, a “library services platform”, is expected to serve as the union catalog of all library holdings in the UP System. Angeles said it can function as a digital library system and will support all core services of UP libraries: cataloging/indexing; circulation; serials management; inventory; and acquisitions.
The implementation of Tuklas and OneLib in other CUs is scheduled from the third week of April to May this year.
All these developments are projected to improve RTL in the University and provide the library resources needed by students, faculty, and researchers.
