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 core services cover four strategic areas.
User Services
Copenhagen 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's service points offer various types of study spaces and study environments, such as group and quiet study areas, lounge and break areas, courtyards, flexible learning spaces, student kitchens, and more, as well as access to book collections.
The facilities vary, but across all locations the Copenhagen University Library's study environments provides optimal settings for private study, group work, and teaching.
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.
Digital Literacy and Teaching
Copenhagen 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 14,000 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 are formalized literature study methods aimed at identifying, selecting, evaluating, and synthesizing research. They are increasingly used as an examination format across all educational programs and levels at UCPH. At the research level, the frequency of these methods is also increasing as a type of publication.
Copenhagen University Library offers consulting assistance through the Systematic Review Service (SRS) to support students and researchers in conducting systematic, scoping, and state-of-the-art reviews. This particularly involves the systematic search process, as well as general methodological expertise.
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
Copenhagen University Library supports with activities and services advancing research and changes of culture within the Open Science agenda.
Copenhagen University Library arranges full-day courses each semester aimed at supporting PhD students and researchers in the challenges they face related to the publication of research and research data. The courses cover topics such as Open Access publishing, the FAIR principles, copyright, Creative Commons licenses, bibliometrics, and research evaluation.
Purpose is to provide participants with knowledge, skills, and tools to publish their research openly and responsibly while meeting the requirements from, for example, the university or funding agencies. Participants earn one ECTS credit upon completion.
Copenhagen University Library screens all dissertations in collaboration with the PhD schools at UCPH, reviewing approximately 1,000 dissertations each year.
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.
Copenhagen University Library provides guidance to researchers on copyright issues related to publishing and disseminating research and research data. The service includes support in:
- Use of copyrighted works, including rules for citation and reproduction of images, figures, etc., in connection with research publishing
- Inclusion of manuscripts or articles in PhD theses
- Transfer of copyright to publishers upon publication
- Creative Commons licenses, including the use of licensed resources and the choice of license in connection with Open Access publishing
Requirements from funding agencies regarding Creative Commons licensing.
Copenhagen University Library supports researchers in Open Access publishing to ensure openness, transparency, and free access to the university's research publications. The service is delivered through education, workshops, guidance, and presentations, and includes support in:
- Various Open Access options
- Publication channels (publishers and repositories)
- Agreements with publishers regarding reduced publication fees
- Open Access requirements from funding agencies
- Avoiding predatory journals.
Bibliometrics can be used for internal analysis and external promotion of KU’s research and can be applied on all levels of aggregation from all of KU to the single individual research publication. Copenhagen University Library’s bibliometric services contribute to KU’s research evaluation, yield 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 used for annual reports and ad hoc reports for the university, the faculties and the departments plus for external funding providers when drawing up reports. Copenhagen University Library 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).
Copenhagen University Library supports, teaches, and provides advice to UCPH's researchers and students in research data management based on the FAIR principles, with a primary focus on data management plans, search for, and publishing research data.
Copenhagen University Library’s research data management services include guidance on requirements from funding agencies regarding open and FAIR data (especially the EU’s framework programmes) and the management of requirements from journals regarding the accessibility of data underlying a publication. Copenhagen University Library also offers assistance in using data repositories, as well as the granting of usage licenses and persistent identifiers for research data. Additionally, the tool DeiC DMP is provided, which contains templates for Data Management Plans relevant to the university’s researchers. Finally, strategies for searching existing data and access to and evaluation of relevant data sources are communicated.
Copenhagen University Library has a broad instructional portfolio, develops and offers courses, workshops, and train-the-trainer programs for researchers, students and to the UCPH’s research supporters.
Information Supply
Copenhagen University Library negotiates licenses and acquires information resources (books, journals, and databases) for students and researchers 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.