Friends of Information Resource Center (FIRC) in collaboration with Information Resource Centre UTP (IRCUTP) and Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (PNM) had successfully organized an event called IRC Karnival 1 Malaysia 2010 from 21st-24th February 2010.  The main objective of this event is to introduce the roles and functions of Information Resources Center (IRC) and also to inculcate reading culture amongst the students as well as its surrounding community.

The IRC Karnival 1 Malaysia 2010 was officiated by YBhg Tuan Haji Mohamed Noor Baharom, Director of Student Services with the presents of YBhg Dato’ Raslin Abu Bakar, Director General, Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia and witnessed by the 1^st Malaysian Astronaut, YBhg Dato’ Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, UTP students, Public and school students at UTP Chancellor Hall.

The four days program started on 21st of February 2010, IRC Karnival 1 Malaysia 2010 with the Launching Ceremony of the Perpustakaan Desa Kampung Belanja, Parit, by YB Dato’Haji Mohd Zaim bin Abu Hasan, ADUN Belanja. The library was set up by Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (PNM) and the IRC Karnival 1 Malaysia had been invited to be the co-organizer for this event.   The Perpustakaan Desa Tg Belanja had been handed over as “perpustakaan angkat” to Friends of Information Resource Centre (FIRC) as part of their CSR project.  Other activities organized with the villagers are Senamrobik, Exhibition of The Retro Wheels, Sukan Rakyat and Karaoke Competition which was hosted by YBhg Datuk Ali Mamak.

On the same day, UTP OPEN Chess Competition 2010 was organized at Multi Purpose Hall, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. It was a one-day competition with seven rounds and offered rating points for its participant. UTP OPEN Chess Competition 2010 has gained reputation as one of the biggest competition that offered prizes up to RM1840.00 by the chess community and had attracted several national players around Malaysia as well as chess players from various institutions. A total of 178 participants joined the competition including 30 UTP students.

Other activities conducted during the carnival in UTP such as Games Competition, Colouring Contest, Word Wits, Exhibitions, Book Fair, IT Fair, Upin & Ipin Appearance, Movie Premiere, Workshop and Several Talks involving prominent speaker such as YBhg Dato’ Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor whom had delivered his Motivational Talks right after the launching Ceremony by sharing his experience as 1^st Malaysian Astronaut.

UTP stole the spotlight at the Word Wits competition when its team emerged as Champion by winning the top 3 places in the competition which was jointly organized with New Straits Times Newspapers in Education (NST NiE).  27 teams from various higher learning institutes registered for this competition including 9 teams were from UTP

Another sharing session was delivered by YBhg Dato’ Yusof Haslam and the film Director, Shamsul Yusof during the Movie Premier for the upcoming movie; ‘Evolusi KL Drift 2’.  The event was jointly organised with Skop Production Sdn Bhd and Grand Brilliance Sdn Bhd.  Besides UTP staff and students, 181 students from Universiti Teknologi MARA, Seri Iskandar campus were also invited and attended for the sharing session and movie premiere.

M Azaman Ismail

Chairman, IRC Karnival 1 Malaysia 2010

In conjunction with Independence Day of Malaysia, UTP Information Resource Centre (IRC) in collaboration with Friends of IRC (FiRC) recently hosted an event, Symposium Anak-anak Merdeka 2009 on 14^th October 2009. The event was officiated by our honourable Rector, Datuk Dr Zainal Abidin Hj Kasim, witnessed by Tuan Hi Mohd Noor Rosli Baharom, Director of Student Services, En Sabri Abu Bakar, Senior Manager IRC, Mohammad Khazaidi Kamaruddin, President FiRC and Muhamad Siddiq Mahyildin as Project Manager.

Symposium Anak-anak Merdeka is an event consist of a discussion and forum whereby panels deliberate and at the same time, participants are allowed to debate on any arising matters. The three invited panels consist of UTP Management, Academicians and Students were assisted by Dr Raja Ahmad Iskandar Raja Yaacob, Lecturer from Management & Humanities Department as moderator. This forum discussed the 1 Malaysia campaign adopted by our Prime Minister and its’ relevancy to UTP community. Before the forum started, Mr Junnyaruin Anak Barat, a member of UTP Malay Debater Team gave the overview of 1 Malaysia concept which stressed on the notion of sustaining the rights of every race without rupturing the Federal Constitution.

During the forum, Tn Haji Mohd Nor Rosli concluded that the management of UTP is always concerned about the unity among UTP students by introducing a quota to ensure the involvement of multiracial students in any event held in UTP. However, the awareness to realize the objective lies on students self responsiveness. On the other hand, Dr Balbir Singh, Head of  Management & Humanities Department had a different ideas on the issue of oneness. He believed that there are no issues of disarray, but it is only political games to attract people’s attentions. Morover, Mrs Nurul Najmin, UTP Postgraduate and ex-MPPUTP board members shared her ideas to realize “1 Malaysia, 1 UTP” in the capacity as a student by explaining the role of a student in creating the environment of oneness. After the forum ended, the audience was entertained by a fluent Malay poetry recitation by our local and international students from Vietnam.

The number of participants invited to this symposium were from major clubs and UTP student bodies as they will be the major hub for information transfer to implement ‘1 Malaysia, 1 UTP’ to the campus. Eventually, the high committee members of these clubs and student bodies that attended the event are able to send our message to other UTP students for the betterment of our UTP community and society.

First ever IRC outreach programme – “PROGRAM KHIDMAT BAKTI PSM UTP” was successfully organized by UTP Information Resource Centre in collaboration with Friends of IRC (FiRC) at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Tronoh (SKST). The objectives of the programme are to advocate information skills, improve literacy and inculcate reading habits among the pupils of SKST, in line with the government’s ‘Bangsa Membaca Bangsa Berjaya’ reading campaign. The program which focused on refurbishing the school resource center saw the building reopens its door to the students after weeks of extensive redecorating. Apart from the facelift, IRC also helped to enhance the library’s collection including providing books from a wide range of subjects, audio visual materials such as DVDs and CDs and a media library section complete with a DVD player. A library system and related hardware were installed including training on librarianship skill to the resource centre custodians. Some 200 pax comprising of staff from IRC, PETRONAS Resource Centre, Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan Negeri Perak, Pusat Kegiatan Guru, representatives from nearby schools, SK Seri Tronoh staff and students, school PTA committee members and FiRC attended the launching ceremony on Saturday, 4th of April 2009.

The event commenced with welcoming remarks from the Headmaster of SKST, En Mohd Mokhtar B Zawree followed by a speech by Tn Haji M Noor Rosli B Baharom who expressed his hope that with the resource centre new look, hi-tech facilities and upgraded collections, SKST students will benefit from it. This was followed by the launching ceremony by YM Haji Raja Abdul Rahman B Raja Amran, Pegawai Pelajaran Daerah Kinta Selatan. In his speech, he expressed gratitude to PETRONAS, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS in particular, for its commitment in giving back to the community as well as the contribution made in refurbishment project and enhancing the library collection. The guests were then entertained with an “action song” by the year 1, 2 & 3 school children and from the Pendidikan Khas class followed by story telling from year 6 student. A tour to the Resource Centre was conducted where the guests were briefed by En Sabri Abu Bakar on the concept and activities of the Resource Centre. The School Media teacher also gave an explanation of the library system where all loans and returning of books are done online. The guests then walked through the coloring and collage competition by SKST students and the Science Show & Exhibition booth organized by FiRC. The science activities managed to attract the school children and their teachers to actively participate in the demonstration.

The outreach program is indeed not meant as a “touch and go” program but a continuous effort. In order to ensure the SKST Resource Centre is self-sustained, IRC next initiative is to provide further training on librarianship skills to the resource centre teachers as well as monitor its progress through quarterly visits and reports to IRC management on attendance, usage of resources, and library system performance. It is hoped the bond between the school and UTP IRC will stand the test of time for the benefits of the school children and this first project will be a promising start to a continuous collaboration with the FiRC and PETRONAS Groupwide Resource Centres for the love of knowledge.

IRC Open Day 09 Road Show was successfully organised by UTP Friends of Information Resource Centre (FiRC) at two schools i.e. SMK Sg. Manik and SM Teknik Teluk Intan. The main objective of the road show is to promote IRC Open Day 09 to the local community as well as to introduce FiRC as a new student body for UTP Information Resource Centre (IRC) in assisting selected IRC activities and planned Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. Among others, the activities had also achieved some of the objective of FiRC:-

1. To introduce students and teachers about the UTP IRC and FiRC.
2. To introduce and train FiRC members on communication skills with the local community.
3. To promote the usage of ICT for information searching among secondary schools students.
4. To expose students and teachers to the beautiful and unique IRC architecture for aspirations to pursue studies in UTP.

On that day, FiRC have promoted the events and activities which have been planned for the IRC Open Day 09. The activities that they can participate are as follows:-

• IRC Tour
• iRaCe
• Spelling Bee
• Poster Drawing competition

During the road show, students were entertained with several activities which are ‘Roda Impian’, Sudoku Competition, Book Worm Deluxe Game, Amazing Adventure: The Lost Tomb Game, Juggling the Ball, and small exhibition about Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), FiRC and IRC.

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.

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 Md 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 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

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!

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 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!