Introduction: East West University (EWU) Library, established in 1996, is the heart of the university. Possessing a secure, controlled environment for the protection of its rapidly increasing collections, the university library offers its users a full range of information and enquiry services with the help of state-of-the-art techniques and technologies. The Library’s mission is to enable and enrich the teaching, learning and research endeavours of the University by delivering flexible access to relevant information resources and by providing quality services and facilities. To meet these needs the library provides access to an extensive range of information resources both electronically and in print.
The vision of EWU library is to offer a strong partnership with the University’s teaching and learning community to enable a more direct contribution to the educational mission of the EWU Library. In the last decade, East West University library has become one of the best private university libraries in the country in terms of its collections, facilities, and services. From the very beginning, East West’s founding father, took the policy of investing heavily in building the library, as they knew that a well-stocked library would become the basis of university education.
The EWU Library plays a key role in the whole educational process of East West University. About 2000 users visit the EWU Library everyday. Out of them, 500 to 600 users make use of circulation facilities, 100 to 200 utilize the photocopy services and 400 to 500 avail the journal and newspapers facilities, while other readers access text books, reference books & reference service facilities. Moreover, a good number of users search online journals through our in-house workstations.
The EWU library is fully automated. A very flexible software, developed by the Software Development Centre (SDC), has been instrumental in automating the Library system. To control and support a large number of users, the EWU Library has several sections, namely; Circulation, Procurement, Journal and Reference, Processing, Online Resources, Photocopy Services, Reserve Books Services, Pigeon-holes, New arrivals Dissemination Services, and Library Administration. All the sections of the Library work together as a team to support the whole university community. Different sections of the Library have been created for providing fruitful library services to the users’ community.
Library Objectives:
a) To support the mission of the University for emerging as a premier academic university, embracing traditional values of higher education as well as the knowledge required for the global community in the 21st century.
b) To identify, acquire, organise, store, and provide on-demand access to the available intellectual and research products of scholars and to support teaching, learning, research and creative endeavours.
c) To provide increasing access to digital collections while continuing to build and improve access to collections in all formats to meet the research and teaching needs of the university.
d) To foster information literacy by working with the EWU community to think critically, create new knowledge, and be life-long learners.
e) To provide and ensure quality services and good professional practice in library activities.
Location of the Library: EWU Library is located on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors of the Foundation Building. In addition, new arrivals display board and pigeonhole area are located on the ground floor of the same building.
Circulation Section: The Circulation section is located on the 3rd floor of the Foundation Building. Lending and borrowing services, users’ guidance, reference services, referral services, in-house telephonic response and any query regarding Library services are maintained by Circulation Section. A team consisting of young and dynamic library professionals work for the Circulation Section.
Procurement Section: This section is situated on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Foundation Building. It procures new materials to add to the existing collections to meet the requirements of the academic community. It also fulfills the University’s research purpose. An efficient procurement team, consisting of two Assistant Librarians, is responsible for procurement in the Library.
Reserve Section: This section is very important for students since a minimum of one copy of all titles is available here for study purpose. It consists of a spacious study room, where more than 120 students can sit at a time. The section is situated on the second floor of the Foundation Building. The Library’s special corner is also located there.
Journal and Reference Section: The Reference Section is located on the 4th floor of the Foundation Building. It provides reference materials, namely, encyclopedias, dictionaries, daily newspapers, print journals, periodicals, magazines, maps, newsletters, research reports, and pure reference reading materials. The print journals are especially important for users, particularly those who carry out their research work in the Library. These journals are used as primary sources of information. At present, the EWU Library subscribes, on a regular basis to 140 titles of print journals/ periodicals /magazines. Currently, the Library subscribes to sixteen daily newspapers and stocks six maps and two hundred internship reports in addition to other reference materials. One Assistant Library Officer/Library Circulation Officer is entrusted to look after this section.
Newspapers Clipping: This service has been redesigned recently to provide more effective services to users covering wide areas. The library provides news-clipping services in the following subjects on a regular basis:
| SL. No. | Subject/Field Name | Class Number |
| 01. | Miscellaneous ( General Works) | 000 |
| 02. | Information & Communication Technology (ICT) | 004 |
| 03. | Information Science & Library Management | 020 |
| 04. | Recruitment (Library) | 023.9 |
| 05. | Publication/Articles of EWU faculty/Staff | 070.408 |
| 06. | Population & Census | 304.6 |
| 07. | Women Affairs | 305.4 |
| 08. | Rural Development | 307.1412 |
| 09. | Human Rights (Civil & Political Rights) | 323 |
| 10. | Economics | 330 |
| 11.. | Environment & Natural Resources | 333.7 |
| 12. | Power & Energy | 333.79 |
| 13. | UNO | 341.23 |
| 14. | Commercial Law | 343.08 |
| 15. | NGO Affairs | 060 |
| 16. | Education (General) | 370 |
| 17. | University Education | 378 |
| 18. | East West University Affairs | 378.5492 |
| 19. | General News of University of Bangladesh | 378.5492B |
| 20. | Social Problems & Development | 381 |
| 21. | Pharmacy | 615.1 |
| 22. | Agriculture | 630 |
| 23. | Business Affairs | 650 |
| 24. | Financial Management | 658.15 |
| 25. | Marketing | 658.8 |
| 26. | English Literature | 820 |
| 27. | Biography | 920 |
German Language Corner: A German Language Corner is available at the Reference Section, 4th floor of Foundation Building. Here, books are arranged by according to class Number.
EWUVLS (EWU Virtual Library Service): East West University Library introduced “Virtual Library Service” on 18 July 2010. EWU library is providing the service only to faculty members of East West University. One Library officer is available to chat with EWU faculty members for any queries regarding library via instant message during Sunday-Thursday: 3:00pm to 5:00pm (BST). The faculty members can get the service through the EWU Library website directly. The service is also available from G-Talk, Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger. Through this service the faculty members will be able to get library related information and instant research assistance from anywhere. EWU Library is the first Library in Bangladesh providing such kind of services.
UN Reference Corner at EWU Library: East West University Library opened a UN reference corner at its library section supported by the United Nations Information Center (UNIC), Dhaka on 26 May 2010. The corner consists of UN publications produced locally and by UN Head Quarters. The corner will facilities the students and the faculty members of EWU to have the opportunity to read and use the UN publications at EWU Library instead of going to UN information Center.
Processing Section: Without processing, no book can be made readily available for users. To locate a book very quickly, processing it properly is essential. After receipt of library materials, there is number of jobs to be done in the library, such as, physical checkup of books, sealing, cataloguing, classification, data entry, preparing book slips, book pockets, bar coding, pasting and finally shelving. EWU Library performs this job manually as well as automatically. One Assistant Librarian, assisted by two staff members, is responsible for processing.
Organization of Library Materials: Books are arranged on shelves subject-wise and are classified according to the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) scheme. Sears list of subject headings and Library of Congress subject headings are used to determine subjects. Books are catalogued according to Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR-2) and entered directly into the Library MIS. The Library staff is ready to assist any member in his/her search for desired library materials.
No manual catalogue is available in the EWU Library. To find out bibliographical information of the resources available in the Library, all users are requested to use the computerized database of EWU Library through Internet using the address http://lib.ewubd.edu. Users of the Library are encouraged to take help from library personnel if and when required.
Library Collection: The Library collection has grown steadily. At present, the total number of library books and CDs are 23,740 and 1,400 respectively. The Collection of EWU Library comprises of books and periodicals related to the field of business studies, economics, liberal arts, social sciences, electrical and electronic engineering, physics, pharmacy, computer science, mathematics, English language and literature and Bangladesh studies, Public Health. The Library also stocks reference publications such as atlases, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, The Banglapeadia, annual reports and publications, survey reports, census reports, country reports, statistical yearbooks and other publications. Very important and rare maps are also available for students in the reference section of the Library.
Books are placed in open stacks for convenience of use. Library personnel are ready to assist in locating information, answer on-the-spot queries, guide and provide instruction in the use of the catalogue, databases, resources, indexes, and abstracts whenever needed. Users can read books, journals, periodicals, newsletters, newspapers, etc. inside the library and are allowed to pull books from shelves for reading and borrowing purposes.
Online Resources Section: For addition to accommodating traditional books and journals, the EWU Library has one of the best online resource centers among private universities in Bangladesh. It subscribes to leading online Journals such as JSTOR (Journal Storage), and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery, facilities available only for individual faculty member). Besides, the Library can access to HINARI (Health Inter Network Access to Research Initiative), AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture), OUP (Oxford University Press), and Highwire Press (Stanford University's free online journals site) journals. All users can find many electronic journals and access full-text articles of the above-mentioned databases. To get the URL of the above-mentioned databases, please contact the Library.
Corporate Membership: EWU Library is a corporate member of the British Council, Dhaka and American Information Centre (Archer K. Blood American Centre Library), Dhaka. Membership facilities like browsing, online public access catalogue, photocopy services, Internet access and access to online journals are available in the respective premises.
Consortium: East West University subscribes to the ‘Bangladesh INASP-PERI Consortium (BIPC)’ http://www.inasp.info/, http://peri.inasp.info/peri/peri.plf to access full-text articles/abstracts/bibliographical information of online journals of different publishers on different disciplines through the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). Access to online journals is IP based. All users of EWU can access these on-line journals from the LAN (local area network) of EWU.
Library Facilities and Services: East West University Library holds a unique place among private university libraries of the country. It provides an array of facilities to library users with the help of state-of-the-art techniques and technologies. EWU Library provides the following facilities for library users:
a) Three spacious floors house separate circulation and reserve and reference sections
b) Fully air-conditioned floors can accommodate more than 250 students at a time
c) Automated borrowing system
d) Open shelf access system, i.e. students and teachers have direct access to bookshelves
e) Faculty members can borrow books for the whole semester
f) Students can borrow CD-ROMs, audiocassettes, texts
g) Provide Current Awareness Service (CAS) and Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) services
h) Ready reference and referral services
i) Photocopy services
j) News-clipping services on important subjects on a regular basis
k) Modern facilities such as computers, printers, electric typewriters, etc.
l) Newspaper corner and special collection corner i.e. UN corner
m) Library users can get back issues of newspapers up to the last one month
Photocopy Services: The EWU Library has a Photocopy Corner located at the entrance on the 2nd floor of the Foundation Building. The Photocopy Corner is open from 8.30 am to 5.00 pm with half-an-hour (from 1.30pm to 2.00 pm) break for lunch. After 5.00 pm and Friday & Saturday photocopy facilities are available from the Photocopy Centre of the University located in the DDC Building. The Library Photocopy Corner is closed on Fridays and Saturdays.
Pigeon-hole Area: Pigeon-hole support services are available on the ground floor of Foundation Building, where more than 400 students can keep personal belongings.
New Arrivals Display Area: One New Arrival display board is also located on the ground floor of Foundation Building. All users may find the book jackets or title pages of new books, which have arrived recently, in the Library board.
EWU Library Launched Web Based Services: From Fall semester 2007, EWU library has introduced web-based library services. Users can now search our library resources from their homes. Moreover, borrowing status, library books’ status, online journals’ icon, and user’s guide, are also available on the web. Users’ are requested to search at http://www.ewubd.edu/ of EWU Library.
Library Committee: The Library is advised by a committee consisting of representatives from different faculties and departments of the University. The Pro-vice Chancellor of East West University acts as the Chairperson of the Library Committee. On the other hand, the Librarian of EWU Library acts as the Member-Secretary of the Committee. Responsibilities of the Committee are to advise the Library personnel of EWU Library in formulating library policies, procuring library materials, improving library and information services, operational matters, and so on.
Library Personnel: To meet the growing demand of users, professionally trained personnel are responsible for taking care of the EWU Library and its contents, including the selection, processing, and organization of materials and the delivery of information, instructions, and loan services to meet needs of its users. A good number of staff members, most having masters degree in Information Science and Library Management run the library in two shifts.
Library Administration: The overall library administration is the responsibility of the Librarian, East West University.
Library Timing:
Library remains open seven days a week as follows:
Sunday to Thursday : 8:30 am - 10.00 pm
Friday : 3:00 pm - 8:30 pm (without break)
Saturday : 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm (without break)
Central Library