Note from Librarians for Fairness:

Posted: 1/18/2013 12:07:00 PM
Author: LfF Staff

We, at Librarians for Fairness, are saddened to announce the passing of our friend, Ron Nachman, Mayor of Ariel, in Samaria. At least he lived long enough to see Ariel University Center of Samaria recognized by the Israeli Government.

Here is some information about the library at Ron's beloved Ariel University Center of Samaria, taken from its website:


Library Hours

The library is open from Sunday-Thursday from 08:00-24:00 and on Friday from 08:00-13:00. Materials may be borrowed from Sunday-Thursday from 08:00-21:00. Between the hours of 21:00-24:00 (Sun-Thur), the library functions as a reading room only (with no borrowing of materials).

There are changes in the library's hours on festivals and holidays (vacation days); the library notifies the public of the changes in advance.


About the Library

AUC's library is an academic library which concentrates material on all the study and research fields of the institute, under one roof. The library supplies a variety of services to the members of the academic faculty, the students, the Research Authority, the technological incubator and all the lecturers. The library strives to respond to the scientific needs of the target audience it serves, and facilitate their access to the desired items of information. The library sees itself as a reflection of the academic institution it serves, thus it strives to promote the research and instruction of the institution while constantly accommodating itself to changing needs and demands.

The library has an open-shelf policy for all library collections except for: the reserved books wing, video cassettes, DVD movies, projects and maps.

Description of the physical structure of the library

The library has three floors, with an area of 2,800 square meters, and is equipped with an elevator. The library rooms have approximately 350 seats, at small and large tables and desks. Some of the desks are equipped with computer workstations. The air-conditioning, the wall-to-wall carpets, the curtains and the patio with its abundance of plants growing inside the library create a very pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, with the picture windows situated next to most of the desks providing maximal illumination.

The first floor includes an entrance and a special adjacent area where visitors can leave their bags; a desk where books are returned and checked out and where general advisory services are provided; a reading and reference room; and a periodicals hall. The reserved books, videocassettes, DVD movies and maps section is located behind the desk, in a separate room.

The second floor includes the library director's room, an advice department that provides extensive in-depth advisory services, two computer rooms for group trainings and independent use, shelves containing books, shelves containing final papers, projects and reading and reference rooms.

The third floor includes shelves of books and a reading and reference room.

The library has seven photocopiers operated by a private company (three on the first floor and another four on the second floor). The first floor also contains a scanner, a viewer for films and filmed classes, a workstation used only for printing scanned articles and a large plasma screen that is updated daily and displays the Ariel University Center class schedule.

The library has a closed circuit TV security system.

A new library building in the lower campus is in the final stages of construction. The new library building will be bigger and have a larger number of computer workstations.

Print material

Reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, concordances, lexicons, art books, religious books and more. The collection includes about 250,000 titles that are computerized in the MARC format, an avant-garde system that is gathering momentum throughout the world and gradually penetrating the university libraries of the State of Israel. All the books are assigned key words; in other words, the books in English receive keywords in English and the ones in Hebrew receive Hebrew keywords. This system makes it much easier for the user.

• Journals: the library has currently subscription to about a hundred journals in Hebrew and about 40 in English in hard copy.

• Rare collections such as: a unique collection donated by Professor Golani (now deceased) in the field of urban construction; a collection donated by the Dubiner family on the subject of Israeli politics and diplomacy. All these collections are computerized and may be retrieved by use of the following keywords: name of article, author and collection.

• Final papers for master's and doctoral degrees, and projects.

Non-print material
• Videotapes on a wide variety of study topics.
• DVD movies
• Slides
• Maps
• Databases on CDs and online databases. The databases include about 25,000 journals in full text. In addition, the library automatically purchases all computerized information that is published in Hebrew and relevant to the needs of the AUC.

• A database of scanned articles. The repository includes articles ordered by lecturers as part of their bibliographies. All the articles are computerized and can be retrieved according to three sets of keywords: name of lecturer, name of article and name of author.

• 30 laptops (portable computers) that are loaned

• Borrowing books: students and faculty members may check out books after they create a reader's library card by displaying an ID and leaving a deposit of 600 NIS, which is returned when the card is closed. Usually, textbooks and reference books may be borrowed for a week while prose and poetry may be borrowed for a month. Sometimes the library restricts the loan period of books that are in great demand. Certain reference books like encyclopedias, lexicons, dictionaries, religious books, series and more may not be borrowed at all. Reserved books are borrowed at the end of the day and returned the next morning or after the weekend.

• Extension of book loan period: A reader may extend the lending period, on the condition that the book was not ordered by another reader. The extension of the lending period may be carried out in one of three ways: in the Circulation Counter in the library, via the telephone or on the Print Materials site on the internet.

• Reservations: Readers may reserve items currently on loan. Once the book is returned, the library will send the reader at the top of the queue a text message notifying him/her that the item will be available for the next 48 hours. If the reader does not collect the item by this time it will be made available to the next in turn.

• Loaning of laptops: The library has 30 laptops that are loaned to students for a one-week period.

• Reference services: The Reference Department assists all those who ask for help (students and lecturers) in retrieving sources in the library's databases. Users can turn to them throughout the day. About five times a week, the library runs organized guidance lectures for groups on information retrieval from the electronic databases. These tutorials are held in the mornings and evenings throughout the year. Users can sign up for these tutorials at the Circulation Counter and there is no limit to how many times they can participate in the lectures.

• Electronic library: includes a network of 130 terminals facilitating free access to the internet, CD-ROMs, access to other libraries in the institutions of higher learning in the State of Israel, and all the databases to which the library is subscribed. Users can retrieve information they need from the electronic library freely and independently, and print what they need. However, they can also get assistance (in the computer rooms) from the librarians regarding online information retrieval, throughout all the hours of library activity.

• Wireless Network: The library provides wireless services accessed via laptop or any other device with Wi-Fi capabilities.

• Access to databases from outside the library: students and lecturers of the institution have access to the databases outside the walls of the library. They can call the library for assistance in using these databases until 21:00 during the week.

• Films & recorded classes: The library's collection of movies and recorded classes is available to readers (The collection of recorded classes includes select classes given by AUC lecturers and recorded by the Ariel University Center.)
• Inter-library loans: The library carries out inter-library loans as a service to lecturers.


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