Library Guide for PolyU Students

Access PolyU Course Programmes Database to retrieve detailed information on academic programs dating back to 1981, including program aims, structure, curriculum outlines, and subject syllabuses.

The quickest way to find books is through a direct search in OneSearch. You may search by Keywords, Title of the Book, Call Number, or an ISBN number.

Watch the short tutorial below to learn how to find and access e-books and print books in OneSearch.

(if you cannot view this video, try another access point here)

You may also refer to the steps below:

1. Visit Library homepage. Type in your keywords or title of the book and hit the search button. (You may also switch to "Books & Media+" tab which will limit your search to books and physical AV materials only)

2. Limit results to "Books" under Resource Type on the right panel of the page. You may further refine results to "Physical items" (which means print books only), or "Full Text Online" (which means e-books only). 

3. Click on the book title to see more information about the book.

4. For print books, the location is described by its Call Number. Check the book location by clicking on LOCATION. 

    You can then pick up the book from the shelves with the call number.

5. For e-books, click on Online access or Full text available or Download PDF.  Access the full-text online via the link provided.

6. Sign in with your NetID and NetPassword to get access to the full-text of the e-book.

For details, please refer to this guide.

Watch this video to learn:

• how to search articles and refine results on OneSearch
• how to access full text of the articles

To find journal articles from OneSearch, you may follow the steps below:

1. Select Articles from the top.
2. Keywords search is the default setting in OneSearch. You can change it to title search, author search, ISSN search etc.
3. By default, only articles with full-text online will be shown in the result list. You can uncheck this box to show articles without full-text if you wish.
4. Input search terms here and press on the SEARCH button.
5. Access the full-text online via the links provided. Login with your NetID and NetPassword if you are accessing articles off-campus.
6. Click on Peer-reviewed Journals filter to limit the result to articles from peer-reviewed journals only if you wish.

 For details, please refer to this guide.

There is a chance that the item you need will not be available in the library. It could be because our library does not have the title, or another user has checked out our copy. The following are some possible ways to place a request: 

• Print Book Request

Option 1: HKALL & Interlibrary Loan Request - Utilizing HKALL & Interlibrary Loan Services to request books from other UGC-funded university libraries in Hong Kong by placing a hold. This allows you to access books available within the UGC-funded university library system. 

Option 2: Place a hold on the PolyU copy - recalling and queueing up for the check-out book from our Library. After you place a request, the previous user will be asked to return the book in about 28 days.

• Article Request
  • You can also try to request the full text of an article using  HKALL & Library's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service. The Library will source the resources from both local and overseas libraries.

Please refer to the guide on the homepage of Interlibrary Loan Guide.

• Remote Store Item Request

  • If the book you need is located at the Remote Store, you can request it through this service. The book will be retrieved and made available for you to pick up. 
    Detailed steps can be referred to in this guide.

• JULAC Card

  You can also apply for a Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC) Library Card at the Loan & Return Counter, which allows you to visit other UGC-funded university libraries in person. This can be another way to access resources from other libraries. View detailed arrangements for the JULAC card here and register online here.

The Electronic Collection of PolyU Library contains a multitude of electronic resources including e-books, full-text electronic journal titles, theses, newspapers, etc. 99% of our journals and 72% of our books are electronic versions and can be available anytime and anywhere. You can access most e-resources both on and off-campus access:

e-Books

The easiest way to find a book is via Library's OneSearch. You can also access books directly from an e-book database, e.g.:

	EBSCOhost eBook Collection covers an extensive collection of e-books in all disciplines. You can read online or download up to 100 pages per day.
	ProQuest Ebook Central covers a large number of e-books in all disciplines. You can read online or download up to 134 pages per day.
	VitalSource covers a selected number of e-textbooks in Business, Finance & Accounting, Engineering & Computer Science, Hospitality & Culinary, Social Sciences & Psychology. You can read online or check out the books for offline reading.

To explore e-books in Chinese, you may try these databases: 華藝電子書 iRead eBook, HyRead eBook, Apabi e-book.

Journals

Library has subscribed to over 170k scholarly journals and 99.5% of them are in e-format. Visit Journal Search to find and access the journals available through the Library. You may also use BrowZine which allows easy browsing, reading and following journals on both desktop and mobile devices.

• Journal Search
• BrowZine (Quick Guide)

Audios & Videos

Library provides over 240k audio & video materials in different disciplines to support teaching and learning. A few featured platforms include:

	JoVE Science Education covers videos to help you improve lab techniques and experimental skills. You can explore videos in the following themes: Basic Methods in Cellular and Molecular Biology General Laboratory Techniques Genetics Neuroscience JoVE also offers videos to support research in different disciplines, e.g. biology, chemistry, environment, and more.
	Alexander Street provides streaming videos for a variety of subjects: Art & Architecture in Video Counseling and Therapy in Video Nursing Education in Video Rehabilitation Therapy in Video and more
	Kanopy collects over 17,800 streaming movies and documentaries in all subjects. A good resource for both learning and entertainment.
	EBSCOhost Audiobooks collects over 360 audiobooks. You can download the app and listen to the audiobooks on your iOS or Android devices.

Check the full list of Audio & Video resources to explore more or get some tips from our Online Audio & Video Resources guide.

PolyU Electronic Theses

Includes doctoral dissertations & master's theses of the postgraduate students of the University.

Digital Collections

 Includes digital contents of valuable rare or unique titles from the Library.

PolyU Institutional Research Archive

 Includes research and scholarly outputs created by the PolyU community.

Remote Access to E-Resources

Bookmarklet Plug-in

when you are off-campus, you can install the library's bookmarklet plug-in in your browser. Follow the steps to learn how to install.To quickly get the full text of the library subscribed e-resources

Install Bookmarklet

Google Scholar@PolyU

Google Scholar is an easy-to-use discovery tool for academic papers. You will see PolyU eLinks for the article we subscribed to if you access Google Scholar on campus, which allows you to access the full text of the articles from the library.

However, PolyU eLinks will not be available on Google Scholar while you are off-campus. In this case, you can still access the articles we subscribed to via Google Scholar@PolyU from the library homepage, or via the library links setting in Google Scholar: