Starting from the Deanship’s keenness to provide support and save time for the central library pioneers, several self-services were provided that the beneficiary could benefit from without the need to seek the assistance of the Deanship’s employees.
- Electronic search service in the library catalog:
Every library has a number of computers available to use them for searching in electronic index website for Sierra system, which can be accessed from inside and outside the university at the link (https: //sierra. ub.edu.sa/) . The electronic index helps library visitors to search and access books and references quickly and easily. It is a set of data called bibliographic records describing for us the library's holdings of (books - periodicals - university theses) materialistic description. It can be searched by title, author, topic, as well as keywords. The search results are presented briefly (title - author - the year of publication - publisher) in addition to the request number of book (It is a set of numbers and letters 3 numbers that may have decimal places and 3 letters) and the libraries in which it is located, and by knowing the order number for the book it can be accessed in libraries as the books are arranged sequentially according to this number.
- ENCORE Search & Discovery
The beneficiary will not find it easier and more efficient than using the additional system in (Sierra) called (Encore) to access all available research sources, whether electronic or printed, and explore them in a way that meets his research needs. The service enables library users to search in the electronic information sources subscribed to by the library and search the library catalog at the same time. (Encore service) provides the full connectivity with the search service in electronic resources (EBSCO EDS). The Encore search and discovery system marked by direct search in the electronic sources, library catalog and digital repository. All of this in addition to all the features of search and explore systems such as suggesting titles in the same topic or book and the spelling function. It also allows the user to connect with the international indexes or other libraries indexes such as (World CAT. Org). The system allows the beneficiary to view his own account, renew loan operations, view all his information, also enables him to store previous searches, share search results on social networks and export them to Citation systems such as EndNote and others.
- Self-borrow
(Self - Check) devices have been provided as they are integrate with the (Sierra) system to allow library visitors to borrow books which allowed to borrow them automatically and directly as the system manages to borrow operations automatically from side and the borrower completes the loan process by himself (borrowing the books he wants) instead of The borrow officer, and without the need for the intervention of any of the borrow section employees in the library.
- Self-digital photographing device:
A special device has been provided that enables users to copy the pages they want and copy them directly to the user's portable memory device. It provides many formats for saving the copied pages.