IRC won UTP Most Outstanding Department Award

7th November 2008

It was a glory day for IRC when it was selected by UTP Management together with Registrar Office as the Most Outstanding Department in Administrative Category. The awards ceremony was held in conjunction with UTP Quality Day 2008 at Chancellor Hall. Furthermore, IRC also won Workgroup/Committee Award through IRC 10 Years Anniversary Programs Committee held last year.

Mrs. Waheda Rahayu Rashid, staff from Resource Development Unit (RDU) also won Quality Practitioner Award, a new award introduced for the first time this year for her outstanding and quality performance in various events and projects organised by IRC and UTP. Apart from that, 7 of IRC staff lead by our Senior Manager, Mr. Sabri Abu Bakar received UTP Long Services Awards from our Rector, Dato’ Dr. Zainal Abidin Hj Kassim.

The ceremony was also highlighted the soft launch of UTP Knowledge Management (KM) Initiative driven by Mr Sabri Abu Bakar, IRC Senior Manager. He was given the honour to deliver the initiative speech and presentation before the launching of special montage by our Rector. The event was then enlightened by a Take 5 presentation by UTP Tronoh Theatre Shop titled “CIKU” featuring our own Mr. Muhamad Md Haris, one of our IRC Senior Executives.

 

Friends of IRC Inaugural Annual General Meeting

4th November 2008

The first Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Friends of Information Resource Centre (IRC) was held on Tuesday in Auditorium, IRC. The meeting began with welcoming speech from Abi Aiman Ayoub, President of FIRC 2008/2009. Friends of IRC was proposed by UTP Management to assist UTP IRC in promoting the importance of IRC as an information hub for study and research. It was also established to inculcate leadership and long life learning capabilities among UTP students through selected IRC activities and planned Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program.

Highlights of the event are the official launching of FIRC logo and weblog by IRC Senior Manager, Mr. Sabri Abu Bakar. He hoped that FIRC will be able to assist IRC management on various aspects such as IRC promotion and usage of IRC facilities and collection.

Among the FIRC objectives are:

1. To create independent and skillful clients who are information literate and knowledge savvy.
2. To act as ambassador for promoting IRC services and facilities to UTP community.
3. To attract a larger number of patrons by assisting new and current users in fully utilising IRC facilities and services.
4. To assist IRC in organising CSR programs in relation to PETRONAS aspiration to give back to society.

The audiences were also impressed with the creative montage presented by FIRC committee. FIRC HICOM and 6 committee departments also presented their strategic planning for the next cycle of financial year. The departments namely, Public Relation & Marketing, Academic & Society, Activity and Training, Welfare and Technical as well as Promotion & Publication Department presented their proposal plans as scheduled.

During the AGM, Mr. Muhamad Haris, Head Customer Services announced the winner of Independence Quiz Competition. The quiz was held in conjunction with 51^st Malaysian Independence Exhibition title “Perjuangan Perdana Kearah Kemerdekaan” organised by IRC in from 20^th August to 30^th September 2008. The winners are Azfar Mohd Nordin (Champion), Rifdi Zulfadhli Ruslan (1^st Runner-up), Abi Aiman Ayoub (2^nd Runner-up), Muhamad Siddiq Mahyildin (Fourth) and Mohd Khazaidi Kamarudin (Fifth).

Before the end of the meeting, Master of Ceremony opens the floors for Q & A session between member of FIRC and IRC Management. The AGM was adjourned at 5.00 pm with a group photo of FIRC members and IRC management staff. Weblog for FIRC is http://fircutp.blogspot.com/

FIRC Members Photo Session

 

SCOPUS Database Demo

15th October 2008

SCOPUS Demo for Academicians

Information Resource Centre recently conducted a demo and training session on SCOPUS database at IRC Auditorium. The session was facilitated by Ms. Jo-an from Elsevier, the company which publishes SCOPUS. It is the largest abstract and citation database of research literatures and quality web resources including 15,000 peer reviewed journals published by 4,000 international publishers covering scientific and technical as well as medical and social sciences subject areas.

The SCOPUS database offers worldwide coverage, and more than half of its content originates from Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region. SCOPUS also covers 386 million web resources, including 21 million patents. In order to gain comprehensive input regarding SCOPUS database, IRC sent invitation to lecturers and post graduate students to attend the demo. Fortunately, the scheduled demo received good feedback from the participants.

Basically the demo did covered on the following:

As a university:

- How SCOPUS can help with analyzing an institution’s research profile.

- To use it as one of bibliometric indicator by THES-QS agency in rating the international university.

- Track research trends and identify hot topics.

As a writer:

- How to search for your own research profile on SCOPUS, see who has been citing you, analyze the research you have influenced.

- H-index – what it is, how your own H-index is derived and practical applications of the H-index.

- To view all citations that your articles has received from other articles covered by SCOPUS.

As a researcher:

- How to use SCOPUS Citation Tracker tool to do citation analysis.

- Using SCOPUS to improve the way you currently do information gathering.

- Make connections with fellow researchers within or across disciplines.

- To know high-impact and indexed journals in SCOPUS.

- To browse cited refernces of articles published from 1996 onwards and make connections across subject areas.

The SCOPUS trial for IRC had been extended until 30 November 2009. Subscription will start from 1st December 2008 until 30 November 2009. For inquiries, please contact Mr. Shamsul Rizal Ibrahim, Executive Serial & Online Services via email to: shamsulrizal_ibrahim@petronas.com.my

 

51st Malaysia Independence Exhibition

30th September 2008

An exhibition commemorative to our 51st Independence Anniversary was held from 20th August to 30th September 2008 at IRC Lobby. The exhibition titled “Perjuangan Perdana Kearah Kemerdekaan” was organised in collaboration with Arkib Negara Malaysia. Most of the items displayed depicts the struggle of Malays, Chinese and Indian during the era of Japanese occupation, establishment of Malayan Union and emergency periods towards the independent of Malaya and later the formation of Malaysia.

A short quiz was also organised by IRC to inculcate self learning and to add more attraction to the exhibition. In conclusion, IRC was really appraised by UTP management for setting up the exhibition to further enlighten the 51^st Malaysian Independence Day.

MERDEKA!

 

Visit by Librarians of Taiwan

5th September 2008

IRC was honoured to receive a group of delegates from Interlibrary Cooperation Association (ILCA) of Taiwan during the holy month of Ramadan. Lead by their madam Chairperson, Professor Dr Li-Ping Chen, the 35 group members were entertained by IRC Senior Manager, Mr. Sabri Abu Bakar and fellow librarians at Auditorium, IRC.

 

The objectives of the visit were to exchange working experience regarding acquisitions and dissemination of electronics resources such as e-journals, databases, and e-books. They were also interested in the utilisation of RFID in Malaysian academic libraries.

 

Overall, they were very impressed with the library facilities and system management adopted by IRC. They had also learnt out that most libraries in Malaysia have made a great progress in many aspects of library services and at par with most libraries in Taiwan.

 

Furthermore, the library tours had really given them a deep impression on Malaysian librarians’ friendly attitudes during their visits. They had learned a lot from the excellent working experience exchange and also welcoming fellow Malaysian librarians to Taiwan and visit their libraries in the near future.

 

IRC Welcomed Two New Executives

2nd September 2008

IRC welcomed 2 new executive members this month. Mr Benyamin Hanafiah, previously working with MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems Sdn Bhd (ASTRO) will be attached to Data Processing, Cataloguing and Records Unit as Executive. Meanwhile, Ms Sharifah Fahimah Saiyed Yeop, who had more than 10 years working experience with Paradigm Systems Berhad will be joining Automation & Multimedia Section, Customer Services as Senior Executive. Welcome to UTP!