Library Services

• Home lending means the cession, for a limited period of time, of publications belonging to the BGUPT collections, for use in spaces outside the library;
• The home loaning is granted to UPT cardholders and external users, duly enrolled and identified, according to the dispositions of Article 2, number 2 of the present regulation;
• The loan of publications is individual and non-transferable. It is forbidden to lend the borrowed publications to third parties, under any pretext whatsoever;
• UPT students, researchers, lecturers and employees may borrow documents for home loans with the following deadlines:
  
  • UPT undergraduate students and non-teaching staff: 2 printed publications (monographs or periodicals) and 2 audiovisual or multimedia documents, for a maximum period of 7 working days;
  • Master’s students, project or seminar and interns: 4 printed publications (monographs or periodicals) and 4 audiovisual or multimedia documents, for a maximum period of 15 working days;
  • Doctoral and post-doctoral students and researchers: 6 printed publications (monographs or journals) and 6 audiovisual or multimedia documents, for a maximum period of 30 working days;
  • UPT faculty members and guest academics: 8 printed publications (monographs or periodicals) and 8 audiovisual or multimedia documents, for a maximum period of 30 working days.
• UPT faculty members responsible for research projects may borrow publications acquired within the scope of the referred projects, for a period not exceeding twelve months, renewable for the duration of the project;
• When borrowing publications, the requisitioner is given a document identifying the borrowed publications and the respective return date;
• The publications requested by the members of the academic community of UPT until seven working days before the beginning of August may remain in the possession of the requester until the end of that month, and should be returned until the second working day of September;
• All the existing publications in the reading rooms of the BGUPT are available for loan, with the following exceptions:
  
  • The reference works, namely dictionaries, encyclopaedias and atlases;
  • The publications integrated in the special and reserved collections;
  • The last received issue of each active periodical publication;
  • Other publications, namely fundamental works for certain disciplines, of which a copy is reserved for consultation in person
• Prohibited or conditioned loan works are marked with a special label.
• Some works of juridical nature, technical manuals, tests, or others of similar characteristics can be loaned by way of permanent requisition to research laboratories or specific services of the UPT

Loan Renewal

• The loan renewal can be made in person, by telephone, e-mail or through the BGUPT virtual services.
• Two consecutive renewals can be made, with the exception of periodic publications.
• Any user loses the right to renew the loan period if he/she exceeds it, or if the library needs the publication in question to satisfy other requests.
• Renewals may be requested until the last day of the loan period.

Booking Publications

• Any publication that is on loan may be reserved by another user, who may request it as soon as it is returned.
• Bookings can be made in person, by telephone, e-mail or through BGUPT’s virtual services.
• The reservation is valid for two working days after the previous user returns it.
• BGUPT reserves the right to request the early return of any publication whenever the number of booking requests exceeds the number of existing copies.

Returning Borrowed Publications

• At the end of the loan period users must return the borrowed publications or request their renewal.
• In the act of returning, a proof of the same is delivered to the user.
• The publications must be returned by the borrower himself.

Fines and Penalties

• The non-return of the publications lent under the home loan service within the deadlines set in Article 10 of the present Regulations implies the suspension of the right to request publications during the time of the delay, as well as the payment of a monetary penalty, determined annually by the UPT’s Administration Council, under proposal of the Library Director.
• After 15 days of delay in returning the publications, and besides the fines and penalties indicated in the previous paragraph, the user is prohibited from making new requisitions for 30 days, counting from the date of return of the overdue publications.
• The user who tries to remove publications from the BGUPT without prior requisition will be subject to disciplinary proceedings and suspension of all rights to use the library services while the disciplinary proceedings take place.

Compensation for loss and damage caused

• Under all circumstances, the user is always responsible for the publications borrowed, having to replace or compensate the library in case of damage or loss of the same.
• Damage to a publication is considered to be folding, cutting or tearing, writing or scratching, drawing, underlining, dirtying or wetting its pages or covers, as well as tearing or disabling any signs placed by BGUPT.
• It is up to the library Director to decide if the damage caused to a publication is or is not liable to compensation.
• The calculation of the amount to be paid by the user, in case of damage or loss of publications, will be made by the library Director, taking into account the real and estimated value of the publication, as well as all the expenses inherent to the respective process.

• The interlibrary loan allows the access to publications not existing in the Library, through a protocol established between the BGUPT and other information units, academic and non-academic, national and international, being given the same possibility to the users of those units who intend to consult documents belonging to the BGUPT collections.
• The inter-library loan is provided under the same conditions as the home loan or according to the rules indicated by the institution that owns the publications.
  Interlibrary loan requests may be made in person, at the Library reception desk, or by e-mail.
• The inter-library loan is free of charge for the internal users of the BGUPT, except in cases where the entity from which the documents are requested charges a fee for the service, which must be supported by the requesting user.
• O empréstimo interbibliotecário é gratuito para os utilizadores internos da BGUPT, exceto nos casos em que a entidade à qual os documentos são solicitados cobra uma taxa pelo serviço, que deverá ser suportada pelo utilizador requisitante.
• The loan of BGUPT publications to other institutions obeys the following conditions:
  
  • Requests must be addressed to BGUPT by letter or e-mail;
  • The loan is made for a period of 10 working days;
  • The sending and return of the publications are always made by registered mail, and the requesting entity must confirm in writing the registration number and the date of return;
  • The requisitioning entity is responsible for the payment of postage;
  • The requisitioning entity is responsible for any damage or loss of the publications granted by the BGUPT, being subject, in such cases, to the penalties set forth in the present Regulations;
• The BGUPT reserves the right not to proceed with the interlibrary loan in cases where the borrowers do not comply with any of the points of the present Regulation or whenever the interests of its users may be harmed.

• Face-to-face reading is understood to be that which is carried out in the reading and group work rooms available in the Library;
• The users may consult in free access all the publications available in the reading rooms of the Library;
• The publications that constitute the special and reserved collections, as well as the numbers of periodic publications kept in deposit, can be consulted upon request;
• The Library organises monthly thematic exhibitions, with the purpose of publicising its collections and making relevant books known to the academic community. These exhibitions, located in the reading room on the first floor, are always created based on themes of interest and events of academic life, commemorative dates or current events, around books with purpose;
• The rules for the use of the reading rooms are defined in Regulations of the General Library of the University of Portucalense

BGUPT subscribes to multidisciplinary or thematic publication databases, as well as other electronic resources available online, for use by the entire academic community. These resources constitute platforms for accessing reliable and quality information, essential for supporting research or other academic work.

B-on

A multidisciplinary database, with access to scientific documents.

Accessible from any computer at the UPT or outside the University (in this case by setting up a VPN connection – configuration manual available at SIUPT).

UPT Institutional Repository

Platform where all UPT’s scientific production is deposited (master’s dissertations, doctoral theses, articles in national and international journals and papers in national and international congresses). Access to the documents is open and they can be downloaded.

Accessible from any computer.

Sabi

Database of financial analysis of Portuguese and Spanish companies with a history of annual accounts, through which it is possible to carry out searches and analyse the results, containing current and historical information.

Accessible from any computer at UPT or outside the University (in this case by setting up a VPN connection – configuration manual available at SIUPT).

BDJUR

Database for the Law area, which makes available consolidated legislation, jurisprudence, juridical dictionary, collections, forms, codes and collections.

Accessible from any computer, through login and password (request access data to the Library).

Lexit

Database for the Law area, which provides updated legislation and annotated codes (also available mobile).

Accessible in all computers at UPT or outside the University (in this case by setting up a VPN connection – configuration manual available at SIUPT).

BibDigital

A multidisciplinary digital library developed by BGUPT, with free access, containing e-books, selected articles and summaries of scientific journals with access to the articles, in the different areas of knowledge, aimed at the entire UPT academic community.

DOAJ

Multidisciplinary directory of journals and scientific articles, in digital format and open access, available from any computer.

DOAB

Multidisciplinary e-books directory with access to books in digital format, available from any computer.

RCAAP

RCAAP is the Portuguese Open Access Scientific Repository. It aims at collecting, aggregating and indexing existing open access scientific content in institutional repositories of national higher education entities, and other R&D organisations.

It is a single point for searching, locating and accessing thousands of documents of a scientific and academic nature, namely journal articles, conference papers, theses and dissertations, distributed across numerous Portuguese repositories.

It is available from any computer in open access.