Service Catalogue
Copenhagen University Library, an internationally strong university library, has undergone a digital transformation in order to strengthen services aimed at the users.
The core services follow the strategic initiatives of the university focusing on digital education of students and Data Labs for students, research based teaching, Open Science and data management.
Copenhagen University Library’s (KUB) core services cover four strategic areas.
User Service
The university library services the users in a professional way with high standards and a fast response time.
On all locations the users meet well qualified information specialists who refer swiftly to relevant materials or to other specialists within the organisation. Users can receive practical assistance in borrowing materials and ask questions relating to the library system.
The staff reaches out to and helps the users and informs them of the library’s offers, for instance printed and electronic resources, or courses. Please ask subject related questions at the enquiry counter within ordinary office hours. Outside office hours you find student assistants.
“Ask the Library” is Royal Danish Library and thus also Copenhagen University Library’s online service for enquiries. We address enquiries from the users of the library forwarded through a web form, mail, chat, or telephone. The service is open all weekdays 9am – 3pm.
We answer most enquiries overnight. Answering very specialized enquiries may take a few working days however.
Copenhagen University Library has a total of 12 points of operation divided between five faculty libraries and seven departmental libraries. Overall, they accommodate approximately 2,400 study places in addition to book collections and a number of facilities like student kitchens, lounge areas, atria, 3D printers, massage chairs, flexible learning spaces and more.
The facilities differ among the locations. Thus, KUB’s study environment supplies ideal frames for both private studies, group work and tuition. The study environment on the points of service bridges the physical space with digital knowledge resources the library gives access to through printed dissemination, digital screens, tuition and guidance. Royal Danish Library’s print, scan and copy service is found on all Copenhagen University Library’s points of service.
Copenhagen University Library is present on different online platforms where the library disseminates anything from practical information, news and guidance to educational videos and surveys of open as well as e-resources bought out of licenses on subject specific sites.
Dissemination of library resources and services primarily takes place through the library system and subject guides.
Education and Digital Formation
The University Library strengthens the students through education and guidance in good academic practice.
Copenhagen University Library instructs students as to digital formation and competences like information retrieval, reference management, data handling, source criticism, plagiarism, copyright et cetera. Apart from an introduction to the library at the start of the study Copenhagen University students are also offered a library tour on both the bachelor and the candidate parts of their study.
Physical tuition is increasingly being supplemented by online instruction and involvement of e-learning objects. The development of the library’s instruction offers occurs in close cooperation with instructors and others responsible for the teaching at the university and the aim is to make the library tuition an integrated part of the subject related progression at the department or the education and it must fit into the local annual wheels and the students’ subject related qualifications.
Approximately 550 courses are performed each year of which the half is “embedded” in close cooperation with lecturers at UCPH counting about 12,000 participants.
KUB Datalab supports the students’ work by collecting, systematizing, analysing, visualising and disseminating data. The lab offers support, courses, data sprints, open lab and internationally certified workshops for students and other interested parties.
KUB Datalab cooperates with teachers at the university in developing the data competences of the students by participating with embedded instruction. All together the Datalab provides approximately 100 different teaching activities per year.
Systematic reviews is a formalized method for research output with the aim of identifying, choosing, evaluating and synthesizing all relevant research which addresses a specific research question. Systematic information retrievals form the underlying method in a systematic review.
Copenhagen University Library provides through Systematic Review Service (SRS) consulting services in order to support the work of students and researchers as to systematic information retrieval.
Copenhagen University Library offers students, researchers and lecturers at UCPH one to one guidance meets with information specialists who have special competencies within the subject in question or the field of interest of the student, the researcher or the lecturer. It is a condition for the students that they have participated in an information retrieval course prior to the meeting.
The service includes a preliminary dialogue by mail or telephone and a meeting for the duration of ½-1 hour.
Research Support Service
The University Library supports University of Copenhagen with activities and services advancing research and changes of culture within the Open Science agenda
In the course of the year Copenhagen University Library arranges eight all-day courses in order to assist PhD students and researchers in handling the challenges and choices made when research and research data is published.
The courses include sessions on Open Access publishing, the FAIR principles, data management, copyright in relation to publication of research results, Creative Commons licenses, bibliometrics and quantitative evaluation of researchers and optimal registration of research activities.
Participation gives one ECTS point and aims at developing the students’ knowledge of how to publish research in a responsible way and at the same time measure up to demands issued by University of Copenhagen, foundations, and from the research environment.
At UCPH KUB screens all dissertations in cooperation with the PhD schools. We screen approximately 1,000 dissertations yearly.
The aim of the service is to control the university’s PhD dissertations and doctoral theses for textually duplicate content and plagiarism and in this way maintain the university’s scientific level and reputation. In this way the service contributes to prevent plagiarism and cases of scientific misconduct at the university.
We carry out the service through education, workshops, consultations and presentations and we perform it as guidance, not as legal assistance. Also, Copenhagen University Library assists UCPH researchers in solving copyright problems related to publishing, dissemination, data and education. As to securing open access to UCPH research KUB assist the researchers in scrutinizing agreements between publishers and authors so that the researchers realize insofar as possible what the consequences of a possible conclusion of a contract entails.
Additionally, the service also guides in how to use Creative Commons licenses as to research publication and education.
Essentially Copenhagen University Library supports UCPH researchers in OA publishing in order to secure openness, transparency, and free access to the university’s research publications and thus contributes to the Open Science efforts of UCPH.
We organize the service through education, workshops, consultations and presentations. The service includes OA publishing, publication channels (publishing houses and repositories), agreements on publication discounts for articles and contributions to monographs, OA claims from foundations, councils and other appropriations authorities plus verification of OA journals in order to avoid predatory journal publication.
Bibliometrics can be used for internal analyses and external promotion of UCPH’s research and can be applied on all levels of aggregation from all of UCPH to the single individual research publication. KUB’s bibliometrics services contribute to UCPH’s research evaluation, yields yearly faculty reports and where applicable split down to the institute level.
Special assignments like reports for preparing tenures may be carried out by appointment.
The service also covers sparring on specific analyses and replies to questions about bibliometric analyses and indicators. Besides, it can be booked for education and presentations on bibliometrics. The service includes expert knowledge and counselling on further development of responsible bibliometric practice and the next generation of metrics. The bibliometric service carries out major assignments by agreement against payment if required.
Publication data is employed in annual reports and ad hoc reports for the university, the faculties and the departments plus for external funding providers when drawing up reports. KUB validates and controls the quality of the metadata for all the approximately 16,000 publications found in CURIS each year and enriches it with Open Access wherever possible.
The registrations are used in a number of relations for documenting research at UCPH. Data is drawn from CURIS for the researchers’ profiles in “Find a Researcher”, and data is used in the annual ministerial gauging, the Open Access Indicator (OAI).
KUB supports, teaches and provides advice to UCPH’s researchers and students in research data management based on the FAIR principles and primarily as to the planning of research data management and publication of research data.
KUB’s research data management services encompasses counselling as to demands from funding providers for open and FAIR data (especially EU’s framework programmes), management of demands from journals as to accessibility of data underlying a publication, guidance in how to use data repositories and the granting of licenses for use and persistent identifiers for research data and the tool DeiC DMP containing templates for Data Management Plans relevant for the researchers of UCPH.
KUB has a broad instructional portfolio and develops and offers courses, workshops and train-the-trainer courses for researchers, students and UCPH’s research supporters.
Supplying Information
The university library negotiates licenses and acquires information resources (books, journals, and databases) for students and researchers at UCPH who gain access to the resources through the library’s retrieval system.
The University Library purchases and administrates annually scientific information resources for approximately DKK 60 million for the benefit of students, users and researchers at UCPH, RUC, ITU, DAB and CUH and ensures access to this through the library system. Of this approximately DKK 57 million is spent on e-resources.
The library adjusts continuously the accessible resources based on measured use, the users’ needs and the economy. The library seeks to support the universities’ strategic aims through negotiations with the scientific publishing houses on access to the resources.
The faculty libraries and the matching departmental libraries offer all departments/educational bodies at the university to purchase course literature either as local reference copies of the printed course books or as e-books or e-journals. However, the library will purchase no more than 10 titles per course.
You find semester shelves at the local points of service. Purchases for the semester shelves ensure both news value and an ongoing subject anchoring of the library’s literature and form at the same time a central part of the strategic objective of the university library as to user driven accession.
The university’s staff and students have access to literature with more than 14 million physical entities, 2 million digital entities and a big acquisition catalogue of further digital titles. Physical material can be ordered, borrowed and returned across all Royal Danish Library locations or for some staff through office delivery.
Login to the library system automatically gives UCPH students and staff access to articles, e-journals, e-books and databases.
Royal Danish Library administers the licenses and ensures that students and staff have correct access from the university and from home. If a student or staff needs material which we do not possess neither physically nor electronically it can be ordered for purchase and/or as a loan from other libraries at home and abroad. This service as well as loans and e-access is free of charge for students and staff at University of Copenhagen.
The University Library buys e-book bundles from printing houses and this makes a wide choice of e-books available for the users. Furthermore, the library buys both physical and digital books in accordance with a principle that involves the users based on suggestions for purchases received from both staff and students.
A structure of dialogue among the university’s faculties and the university library ensures that digital information resources for which the library subscribes to is of the utmost relevancy for researchers, users, and the students. Every year we scrutinize the license portfolio in cooperation with the university in order to renew or discontinue e-resources. The name of this process is trimming.