ULiège Library provides the university community, ARES member institutions and other users with important documentary resources, which are essential for teaching and carrying out university research and work. For this documentation to remain accessible to everyone, and for it to be consulted under the optimal conditions, a set of rules have hereby been established; if applicable, these rules and regulations shall be supplemented by guides that are intended for users at the various facilities. By visiting the ULiège Library facilities, you commit to complying fully with these rules and regulations.
General conditions of access
The facilities are accessible:
1. Free of charge, as long as a valid student or staff card is shown, or, failing this, proof of this status, for:
- ULiège students (including students in ongoing education) and Erasmus or temporary students;
- scientific, academic and ATO staff members from ULiège (including the CARE and ULiège research centre staff);
- CHU staff members;
- ULiège scientific staff.
2. For any visitors other than those mentioned in point 1, for personal and educational use of the collections and services, free of charge, except for the payment of a one-time fee of €5, which is requested to cover the costs of issuing the library card.
3. For any visitors other than those mentioned in point 1, for professional use of the collections and services (legal professions, pharmaceutical firms, companies, etc.), after payment of an annual €50 fee.
For access to the library, the reader must be able to present their access card. For ULiège students, this means their student card for the current year. People who have not registered must immediately rectify their situation or leave the library. The access card is personal and non-transferable; it must be presented at the request of any staff member. If you lose your library card, you must report this at one of the ULiège Library facilities as soon as possible. If a card holder does not report this loss, they remain liable for any operations that are carried out with the card. In the event of loss, a sum of €5 will be requested for a new card to be issued.
Access to the facilities may be refused to any person whose behaviour causes a disturbance to the public and members of staff, or who refuses to comply with these rules and regulations.
During certain periods of the year (reading period, hand-in deadlines, etc.), certain ULiège Library facilities reserve the right to limit access to users who are not part of the ULiège university community. These limited periods shall be clearly indicated on posters displayed at the relevant facilities and on the ULiège Library website.
Provided services
Borrowing
The type and number of documents that can be borrowed may vary depending on the category of the reader (ULiège staff, ULiège undergraduate, etc.).
Readers may find out the status of their loan(s) at any time by accessing their MyLibrary account and logging in with their ULiège user name and password, if they are members of the institution. If they are external visitors, they may use the user name and password that they were given when they registered.
The loan may be renewed before the due date via the MyLibrary account, as long as the reader’s status allows it. However (i) if a document is reserved by another reader or (ii) if the reader has already reached the maximum number of renewals that is authorised for a publication, renewal shall not be possible. This authorised number of renewals varies depending on the status of the reader and the document. A renewal may also be obtained from the reception desk at any ULiège Library facilities.
Any delay automatically triggers reminders (which are sent via email when it has been provided and/or by post) and an obligation to pay a late fee, which starts the day after the borrowed document(s) was/were supposed to be returned at the earliest. The rate is €0.15 per document and per working day that it is late. When the loan has been granted for a portion of a day, the late fee schedule is adapted accordingly. Furthermore, should the reader be in possession of three publications that have not been returned by the deadlines, or owe late fees of €25 or above, across all facilities, their right to borrow will be immediately suspended across all facilities, until all the publications are returned and the late fees are paid.
If the delay surpasses 75 calendar days, additional measures to the late fees shall be applied, in order to retrieve the borrowed publications as soon as possible:
- For ULiège students and external visitors to ULiège:
- The user’s right to borrow shall be suspended across all facilities. This suspension shall only be removed when the late fee has been paid and the document has been returned.
- If the publication cannot be returned, it shall be replaced. The price of purchasing a new publication (if it is still available) or its new edition/value on the second-hand market (if it is out of print) shall be added to the late penalty. In the absence of other information, the lump-sum value of publications is €30.
- For members of ULiège and CHU staff: the director of the departmental responsible for the facilities shall inform the department heads or, if applicable, the Deans, so that they may intervene with the relevant users.
If a publication that has been borrowed by a user from another ARES member institution is not returned, ULiège Library may inform the institution to which the user belongs. The latter shall make every effort to retrieve the publication or, failing this, to compensate for the losses incurred. As a last resort, the institution itself may compensate ULiège Library. Conversely, ULiège has made the same commitment towards the other ARES member institutions.
Leaving with publications that have not been borrowed
It is officially prohibited to leave a facility with publications that have not been borrowed. Any attempt to leave a facilities with a publication that has not been borrowed (i.e. going through the anti-theft barrier, walking past the loan counter without registering the document) shall be considered as attempted theft and result in the following penalties:
- Payment of a lump-sum fee of €25 per publication, in addition to the price of replacing the relevant document(s), should they not have been retrieved.
- The file shall be sent to the University’s Legal Affairs Department to be handled.
We would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the details shall be recorded on their user account.
Inter-library loans
When a reader wants a document that is not part of the ULiège Library collections, they may request a copy or to borrow it from other Belgian or international libraries via our Inter-library loan service. The fees applied for this service are applicable once the document is received by the library.
Reproducing documents: photocopies and scans
Open-access photocopiers are available to readers; to use them, one must purchase a magnetic card. Cards are generally only valid in the facility where they were acquired. High-definition digitisation of fragile documents that cannot be photocopied may be obtained at the reader’s expense; in this case, the reader must contact the ULiège Library staff. Scanners are available in most of the large reading rooms and on facilities that house maps, plans and photographs.
Partial digitisation
Members of ULiège/CHU staff, ULiège master’s students and ULiège doctoral candidates have the option of ordering a digital copy of an article or a chapter of a publication from the ULiège Library collections free of charge. Documents that can be processed via this service are indicated by a ‘Digitisation’ link when the reader is logged in. The number of simultaneous requests (those pending processing) is limited to three for students and 20 for members of staff. For ULiège master’s students and doctoral candidates, the total number of requests is limited to 20 per academic year and the number of pages per request is capped at 40. If this is exceeded, requests for partial digitisation shall be converted into requests for physical documents and the copies shall be sent to the facility that is deemed to be most appropriate for the requester.
Consultation of electronic resources
The consultation of databases and other paid electronic resources is solely reserved for registered readers (except where there are specific contractual conditions), and only for the purposes of teaching or research. Any commercial use, or use for the purposes of resale to third parties, shall result in exclusion from ULiège Library. If applicable, ULiège Library also reserves the right to forward the file to the Legal Affairs Department to be handled. Except where restrictions are contractually imposed by publishers, all registered readers may access electronic resources (i) from computers made available to users on the facilities and (ii) after logging in via the secure Wi-Fi network on the various ULiège campuses. For members of the university community, access is also possible remotely for most resources, via a VPN connection.
Code of good conduct – penalties
Any person who visits ULiège Library facilities commits to respect the sites, equipment and collections, as well as the work of other readers and the staff. In particular, this means:
- Courtesy must be shown towards other readers, as well as towards the staff.
- When lockers are provided and available to ensure the security of personal belongings, bags, briefcases and laptop cases etc. are prohibited on the facilities; if these facilities are unavailable, it may be required that bags and coats be left at the entrance to the facilities. ULiège Library bears no liability in the event of loss, theft or damage to readers’ personal belongings.
- Silence must be observed in the reading rooms, except group study rooms, where these exist. No mobile phones, personal stereos or any other source of noise may be used on ULiège Library facilities; using personal laptops for entertainment purposes (watching loud videos, etc.) is also prohibited.
- As computer equipment is made available to readers for documentary-research purposes, it is strictly prohibited (i) to use this equipment to play games or for other non-scientific, personal use or (ii) to change its configuration.
- The cleanliness of all facilities must be maintained. In our heritage rooms (Marie Delcourt room and heritage consultation room), all food and drink are prohibited. In our other facilities, only snacks and drinks in closed containers are permitted. Smoking (including electronic cigarettes) is not permitted on our facilities. Animals are not allowed. The equipment, especially computer equipment, and the premises may not be damaged.
- The condition and integrity of publications and periodicals must be maintained. No annotations or especially damage shall be tolerated. Any document that is annotated or underlined (even with pencil) by a reader shall be considered damaged and must be replaced. Readers cannot repair documents that they have damaged themselves. Any document that is lost, damaged or not returned to the libraries must be paid for, at the price of the new document if it is still available, or at its value on the second-hand market if it is out of print, along with any late fees.
- Unless otherwise stated, the reader must not put back publications they have used at open-access facilities, but leave them in the specified places, or, if it is unavoidable, leave them on the tables. It is absolutely forbidden to change the order of the documents on the shelves for any reason whatsoever.
- Authorisation may be required to consult old or special documents and this must be done in accordance with the instructions for handling that the staff provides.
- Readers commit to complying with current copyright law and, in particular, not to photocopy or scan a publication in its entirety or to distribute any copies made in this way via the Internet. ULiège Library bears no liability for any infringement in this respect.
The behaviour of users who infringe these rules and regulations shall be immediately reported to the manager of the relevant facility. The latter shall hear the relevant party and, depending on the severity of the misdemeanour, shall decide whether there is cause to refer it to the Director of ULiège Library and then the Chancellor of the University. The staff may also ask any person disturbing the necessary peace on the facility to leave. If applicable, this ban on access may take effect immediately.
Should an external user who belongs to an ARES member institution behave inappropriately, they may be banned from accessing the ULiège Library collections and services. ULiège Library reserves the right to inform the institution to which the external user who is causing the problem belongs. It commits to taking the necessary disciplinary measures and informing the host institution. Conversely, ULiège has made the same commitment towards the other ARES member institutions.
Furthermore, acts of vandalism or theft shall result in a police complaint and, for students, the events shall be reported to the academic authorities they are governed by, or the head of the institution if they are students from outside the University.
Vie privée
For more information about privacy-protection measures, please read the legal notice.
Last update: September 18, 2019