NUS staff and students at UTown can now borrow books from NUSL Express, a mini “branch library” which is an automated book lending and returning machine. Located at the Education and Resource Center near Starbucks, this library is accessible 24/7. You can now save on time travelling to other libraries, borrow a book from NUSL Express, have a cup of coffee and and contemplate on the book while gazing at the soothing green field.

NUS Libraries is the first academic library in Singapore to have such a fully automated self-service book lending and returning machine. The system is quick and convenient as it is retrieves the exact books requested and updates your loan records immediately after each transaction. A book returned at NUSL Express will be immediately available to the next user. The system is smart enough to recognise and reject returned books that do not belong to NUSL Express.

Only titles that are recommended readings for course modules taught at UTown are available from NUSL Express. Currently, there are more than 200 titles available for loan, although the machine can accommodate up to 500 books. More books will be made available as lecturers add more titles to the list. You can browse or search the titles from the multilingual catalogue displayed on the machine’s screen. Some of the books can be borrowed for 2 hours while others for 2 days (i.e.48 hours). Do check the due date or due time of the books you borrow and ensure that books borrowed from NUSL Express are also returned there. A date or time due slip will be printed for each loan, but this will be eliminated in the future when the system is able to send email messages on each loan transaction.

NUS Libraries