Library Day at SABIC – Saudi Basic Industries Corporation

Presentation on Applicability of Springer eResources for SABIC

On March 11, 2012 Springer was invited to participate in SABIC’s Library Day held in , the heart of the petrochemical industry in . The library day was organized by Mr. Ibrahim Al-Ouerghi, Information Services Leader, Global Technology Network, T&I.

SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) is headquartered in , Saudi Arabia. It is one of the top six petrochemical companies in the world, and the largest and most profitable public company in the . The research focus of the Jubail location is on Materials and Corrosion, Metals Technology, Metal Analytical, Operation and Maintenance and Planning and Control. It also provides services for chemical analysis, mechanical testing, metallographic research and environmental monitoring.

The Library Day was well attended with over 50 of SABIC’s 90 R&D employees participating. The aim of the day was to help SABIC’s R&D teams get the most out of the resources that SABIC subscribes to and Springer, along with TechKnowledge, Elsevier and SABIC, were invited to demonstrate how their resources could be used to best effect.

SABIC currently subscribes to Springer journals and eBook collections as well as SpringerMaterials database. Colleagues from our eProduct marketing and editorial teams were delighted to have the opportunity to meet with SABIC employees and present these resources. We were also excited to show our new corporate platform Springer for R&D for the first time and highlight its relevance for corporate research.

We spoke with Mr. Ibrahim Ouerghi, SABIC, to find out his thoughts on the Library Day.

How would you rate the Library Day at SABIC Jubail? The first impression has been very positive. The attendance was good, better than we expected, which demonstrates the interest that researchers have in the Springer resources we subscribe to, particularly SpringerMaterials. As a result of library day, we expect to see positive impacts on the usage of these resources and we’ve organized a survey amongst attendees to find out what they though about the event.

I also think that some of the success of this year’s event can be attributed to its timing; it was held just before the Gulf Chapter SLA meeting which meant that a high proportion of publishers were in the region and able to attend. We appreciate the attention that they have given us.

Is this the first Library Day you have organized? No, this is the second event organized within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 2011we organized library days at SABIC Technical Center at Mount Vernon, Indiana and also at the SABIC Technical Center at Vadodara, India, but they were on a much smaller scale. The Jubail Library Day enjoyed the full support of our main suppliers, which guaranteed its success. The Library Day is one of the various tools used by SABIC T&I Information Services to help raise awareness of our research collections and the services that we provide to the research and innovation community. It was a golden opportunity for Springer to interact with end users and to introduce the beta version of its new platform “Springer for R&D”.

If you compare these different Library Days, do you see differences in researchers’ needs when it comes to scientific content? The need for specific scientific content varies from one center to another, depending on the research focus. Just to give you an example, STC Jubail is very much focused on metals and corrosion studies, while STC Mount Vernon is concentrating on downstream products in the plastics industry.

Are there any plans for further training days? The event held in Jubail confirmed our idea to extend library days to other SABIC research centers across the globe. As SpringerMaterials is highly relevant to SABIC’s scope of business, we are planning several training sessions over the next few months so that researchers across SABIC technical centers network can take full advantage of this wonderful information source.

If you are interested in organizing a library day or training sessions in your organization to promote the content you have subscribed to, we are happy to support you. Please contact us at [email protected].