The article below includes:
- General information
- Resources and Services
- Infrastructure
General information
Library of Bialystok University of Technology is the largest public scientific library in the technical profile of north-eastern Poland. It consists of: the Main Library and two specialist libraries of the Faculty of Architecture and Management Engineering.
The library performs tasks for the benefit of students, doctoral students and employees of the BUT, collecting and making available a collection of books closely related to their needs. It also documents the University’s scientific activity, conducts bibliographic works and provides information services.
As part of this activity, it creates or co-creates the following databases:
- Base of Knowledge and university repository of achievements and professional activity of employees and doctoral students of Bialystok University of Technology (Base of Knowledge of BUT),
- Database of Polish Technical Journals Contents of (BazTech),
- Polish Scientific Bibliography (PBN).
Detailed tasks of Library of BUT are specified in the Organizational Regulations of Library of BUT.
Resources and services
The book collection of Library of BUT consists of about 400,000 books, magazines, standards, company literature. Its subject matter is consistent with the profile of education and the directions of research conducted at Bialystok University of Technology. The reading rooms of the Main Library and faculty libraries offer free access to approx. 70,000 scientific and didactic collections. Regulations of the reading rooms include short-term borrowing of collections for a period of 7 days, for 3 hours or the time the library is closed. Special devices (self-check) allow you to borrow and return books on your own, and a device (“deposit box”) located outside the building allows you to return books at any time. Registered readers can remotely order books, extend their return dates and control their account balance.
An important supplement to the traditional book collection are electronic resources and the interlibrary loan service. Access to the latest scientific achievements is provided by thematic and multidisciplinary websites of magazines and books. Users can use them remotely, anytime and anywhere.
The library also offers the resources of the Podlaska Digital Library, co-created since 2004.
The Library provides the PRIMO scientific search engine, which allows simultaneous searching of all resources offered by the Library (library catalogue, licensed databases, open scientific resources, digital libraries), as well as modern tools used in scientific work, such as: EndNote Web, which facilitates the preparation of attached bibliographies, a system for verifying publication DOI numbers, InCities iSciVal bibliometric tools, platforms for scientists – ResearcherID, Publons and Kopernio.
In order to make better use of library resources, obligatory and optional trainings are conducted for students, doctoral students and employees of the University.
Infrastructure
The Main Library is located in the building of Center for Modern Education, occupying a usable area of 3678 m2. On three floors of the building there are, among others:
- lending rooms (General and Interlibrary),
- Scientific Information Department,
- creading rooms (Periodicals and Special Collections, Electronic, Books),
- rooms for individual and team work (20 rooms, 80 places),
- multimedia room (32 computer stations).
In total, Library of BUT has 353 places for readers (Main Library – 272, faculty libraries – 81). Users can use 84 computer workstations with Internet access (Main Library – 70, faculty libraries – 14), including 4 workstations dedicated to people with disabilities. Selected computer workstations are equipped with specialized software. Users can also use high-class self-service scanners (3 are located in the Main Library, 1 in Library of the Faculty of Management Engineering) and flatbed scanners (3 – Main Library, 3 – Library of the Faculty of Architecture).