About the Library

History

The Library of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) was established in 1920. In its early days, the library occupied a mere 70 to 80 square meters and housed only a few hundred volumes. In the early 1950s, the government of the People's Republic of China took over HIT. Since then, under the care of the Party and the government, as well as the attention of the university, the HIT Library has gradually grown and developed. In 1954, after relocating to No. 169 Xidazhi Street, the library expanded to 3,200 square meters, and its collection increased to 400,000 volumes. By the mid-1960s, the library had gradually formed a collection system that balanced both Chinese and foreign language materials, emphasized science and engineering disciplines, and featured publications primarily in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and instrumentation, reflecting the specialized academic characteristics of HIT. After entering the 1990s, the library's operations began to transition from traditional manual methods to modern management models. In particular, the completion of the new library building in 1995 marked a brand-new chapter in the library's development history.

After Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) merged with Harbin University of Architecture in 2000, the HIT Library came to have two independent library buildings and an Architecture Branch Library, with a total area of 39,000 square meters. Specifically, the Library (Campus 1) covers 23,000 square meters, the Library (Campus 2) 16,000 square meters, and the Architecture Branch Library 534 square meters. In 2016, a comprehensive upgrade and renovation of the Library (Campus 2) was launched. Upon the completion of the renovation in 2017, the area of this library building reached 16,500 square meters. In 2019, the exterior facade and surrounding environment of the Library (Campus 1) were renovated, giving the entire building a brand-new architectural style. After the upgrade and renovation, the library has added a variety of high-tech user experience spaces, including a stress relief room, a holographic laser cinema, and a micro-course recording studio. Currently, the library has over 3,000 reading seats, as well as various types of lending rooms, electronic reading rooms, multimedia classrooms, meeting rooms, and a large multi-functional lecture hall.

Collections & Resources 

The library boasts a rich collection of resources. As of April 2023, it has 3.57 million volumes/pieces of traditional collections, 2.0196 million types of e-books, and a total of 144 databases. Among these databases, there are 13 abstract databases, 45 foreign-language full-text databases, 20 Chinese databases, 7 Chinese e-book resources, 22 foreign-language e-book resources, 11 multimedia resources, 2 discovery systems, 22 free electronic resources, and 2 retrieval systems and analysis tools.

The library has established a full-text characteristic database of the university's theses and dissertations since 2003 and has commenced the planning and construction of a characteristic database for defense engineering literature. The library's collection of literature and information has formed a comprehensive resource system that is multidisciplinary, multilingual, and multi-carrier, aligning with the university's departmental setup. 

The collection of the Library (Campus 1) focuses on engineering, integrating science, technology, and management disciplines. The Library (Campus 2) mainly houses collections in civil engineering, municipal and environmental engineering, transportation engineering, and basic disciplines. The Architecture Branch Library centers on collections in architecture and urban planning disciplines. Meanwhile, all libraries also have collections in humanities and social sciences as well as other disciplines.

Services

In the construction of campus culture, the library carries out a wide variety of reading promotion activities, making reading a driving force for students' personal growth and success. The library undertakes the functions of the CALIS (China Academic Library & Information System) Digital Library Base and the CALIS Document Information Center for Heilongjiang Province under the Ministry of Education. Through relevant construction projects, it will provide a range of services, including personnel training, document delivery, and resource integration, to university libraries across the province. In March 2019, the Intellectual Property Information Service Center of Harbin Institute of Technology became one of the first batch of National Intellectual Property Information Service Centers in universities. Leveraging its advantages in information resources, our university library not only provides robust information services to support the research endeavors of our own institution but also offers substantial information service support for the research work of other universities and the economic development of the region.

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