Merry Christmas and a review of the year

A brief review of an eventful year

Improving the learning conditions for students

From April to July, the learning spaces within the libraries were redesigned. The new feel-good places support the teaching and learning processes of university staff with an open and clear room concept. The range of modernly equipped learning and workstations is supplemented by hybrid service offerings and the provision of technical equipment. Digital flipcharts, WebEx boards and power banks round off the offering. The result gives the university a lively and innovative place to learn: brighter thanks to new lighting, more colorful thanks to the new furniture, and simply more beautiful thanks to the new carpeting.

After the pandemic, the opening hours of the library (Sankt Augustin campus) were extended again into the evening hours until 10 p.m.

The library office at the Rheinbach Campus moved from Heisenbergstraße to Egermannstraße in March - here we can offer more library services and also provide a study room.

The introduction of a new library system required a lot of work behind the curtains - after months of intensive preparation, the library - like other university libraries in North Rhine-Westphalia - switched to the ALMA library system in the summer. Visible to customers is the new Bib-Discover search system, which replaced the previous library catalog and now makes it possible to search the library's entire collection as well as all digital content - such as databases and electronic journals - in one single step.

In November, the first events of the new format "punkteins" began:  Every Wednesday during the semester, the Bib team gives short insights into research options, databases, introduces tools for scientific work or recommends books for leisure or vacation in 15 quick minutes. The "BibLounge", a weekly, open video chat in which library experts present the basics of library use at the beginning of the semester and, as the semester progresses, topics from the areas of academic work, citation, research, and other library services, was created during the pandemic and has been successfully continued.

New services for lecturers provided by the e-learning team

At the beginning of the year, the library's e-learning team introduced the Dynexite exam platform to ensure the secure delivery of online exams at H-BRS, initially primarily online, but now also in pool rooms.

From April to July, 12 participants took part in the first round of the "E-Teacher" certificate program offered by the e-learning team. The continuing education program is aimed at teachers and employees of the university. In addition to learning about e-learning tools, the focus here is on teaching media-didactic approaches and methods, as well as the direct implementation of what has been learned and the exchange of experiences.

News from the VideoLab: Starting in April, teachers and students can borrow technology sets or individual devices from the VideoLab for video or audio-only production for hybrid teaching scenarios or as a supplement to digitally supported teaching.
 

Of interest to researchers at H-BRS:

The library's research services established a publication fund in which H-BRS authors can apply for partial funding for the publication costs incurred for scholarly open access publications.
In addition, the collaborative writing tool SciFlow was introduced at H-BRS. Among other things, SciFlow supports the writing process of scientific papers through preset formatting and simple export options - theses and journal articles at the push of a button!

Cultural:

The reading series "Guest on the Sofa" restarted at the Sankt Augustin Campus: with Natalie Amiri, Uwe Wittstock, Maren Urner, Shelly Kupferberg and David Wagner, we had exciting guests on our sofa.

The readings also took off again in Rheinbach with an event with Ulrike Herrmann in November - thanks to the support of the city of Rheinbach, we were able to take our place in the "Ratssaal" in the Glass Museum.

The "Bildungsfenster" podcast has been around for more than two years. This year, a total of eleven episodes have been published. In the 25th jubilee episode, the creators look back and recall special moments.

We would like to thank you for the good cooperation and we are looking forward to the new year!

The H-BRS Library at the Sankt Augustin and Rheinbach campuses (interim office Egermannstraße 1) of Hochschule Bonn Rhein Sieg, University of Applied Sciences will be closed from Saturday, 24 December 2022 to Sunday, 1 January 2023 inclusive.
The library will close at 5 p.m. on 23 Dec 22 and reopen at 9 a.m. on 2 Jan 23.

During the closing days, the library's digital offerings will be available as usual at https://www.h-brs.de/en/library.