Category: Library Update

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EDI Summer Reading Challenge

Abstract colourful shapes. Text reads: Summer Reading Challenge, libguides.ncl.ac.uk/edi.

Summer is the perfect time to embark on a journey, broaden your horizons and soak up a different culture or perspective. So, the team behind our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) library guide is delighted to re-launch a summer EDI reading challenge.

Since its launch in autumn 2020, we’ve been using the guide to curate and highlight print and online resources of all kinds, relating to EDI themes, such as those listed in the University’s EDI priorities. We’ve compiled themed sections and monthly highlights of books, films, social media, archives, podcasts and more, and encouraged suggestions from staff and students across the University to help us develop our collections.

So why not take up our Summer EDI Reading Challenge?

Recommend and Review

Look through our themed reading lists on our Recommended by You & Blog page and explore life through a new lens! We hope you’ll find some inspiration, but we’d also love to receive your recommendations too, and we’ll be highlighting them on the guide.

You’re welcome to use the online form on the lib guide. If you can give us a few words to explain your choice, that would be great! You can see what people recommended last year on our EDI in Literature page.

Social Media

We’ll be running a promotional campaign on social media throughout summer, using the hashtags #ReadingForPleasure and #EDIReadingChallenge. Please look out for these and retweet/repost wherever possible.

Have a great Summer everyone! We’ll leave you with the inspired words of the Poet, Derek Walcott:

I read; I travel; I become.

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Meet the Walton Library Team

Hello and a warm welcome from all of us here at the Walton Library!

With the beginning of the year in mind (and what a year this is looking to be!) we wanted to make sure you are familiar with at least some of our faces.

Aimee, our Deputy Medical Sciences Librarian will begin by welcoming you all and talking a little bit about her role and the role of the Walton Library Liaison Team.

Compared to previous years, we won’t get to see as many of you as we would like, but we want to assure you that we are real and still very keen to help. So, let’s hear from Helen, one of our Library Aides, who ensures that physical resources are tidy and readily available, but is also here to welcome you when you come to the library, help you find your study space and your books.

A lot of work is put in ensuring that the academic resources required for your course are available. This extends from liaising with your lecturers and putting together reading lists of essential and recommended material, to ensuring that you can access these resources, to delivering session that will help you make the most out of them, as Marian, the Assistant Librarian in the Liaison team will explain.

Our Library assistants have a huge role in the reading list process as they check, double check and triple check… and then they check again that things work well. Elizabeth has a role in all of this, but she will also explain what she does when we receive new books and they need to be sorted and catalogued.

While we do have a lot of online resources on the website that will help you teach yourself a variety of academic skills, it can be quite daunting sometimes to find your way to the correct link, on the correct page, for the correct resource. That is why we are also happy to give you one-to-one guidance and point you in the right direction and if you ever get stuck, do our best to answer your questions. Bogdan will tell you in a few words how much he enjoys this element of interacting with you all.

Remember, you can always ask for assistance via Library Help.

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Freshers’ Guide to the Walton Library

Wishing a Warm Walton Welcome to all new and continuing students in the new academic year!

Just as you are settling into life at University we thought that you might benefit from this list of tips of how to make the most out of your time in the Walton Library.

Opening hours

The Library opening hours change throughout the year, but during term time, we are open normally until 22:00.

Resources

Use your Reading Lists as a great starting point for finding academic material. They can be accessed via your VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), which is either Blackboard or the MLE, depending on the course you are studying.

All academic resources that we purchase will be available via Library Search. It is the most prominent element on our colourful website and it will show you books, articles, journals in both physical or electronic format, databases and others.

The library website can be found here: www.ncl.ac.uk/library/
The library website can be found here: www.ncl.ac.uk/library/

Use keywords to find the titles that you need and Library Search will tell you whether we have them or not, whether they are available on the shelves, in which library and part of which collection they are. If a book we have in stock is NOT currently available on the shelves, the best thing you can do is to log in with your student ID and password and place a reservation:

Reserving is in your best interest because this is what will prompt a current reader of the book to bring it back so that you can use it. So remember: Shy bairns get nowt.

Specialist help

There are subject-specific guides that give you information directly relevant to your course. You can find them by selecting your course in Subject Support, on the Library website.

Want to ask us a question?

Library Help is the place you seek. You can browse our FAQ database by topic or search it by using keywords. You can also send us an email or chat with us. Library Chat is monitored 24/7, so as long as you have access to the internet, wherever you are in this great, big world, you can contact us.

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New book bin at Fredrick Douglass Centre

From 7th October we are piloting a scheme where you can return your long loan library books to any of the following locations on campus regardless of where they were borrowed:

For those based at the Helix site, we have also included a new book return drop off point located in the Frederick Douglass Centre – view on Google Maps.

Remember, this only applies to long loan items – Student Text Collection items will still need to be returned to the library you borrowed them from.

This pilot will run throughout the first semester. The items from the book bin will be collected 9.15am and 3.30pm Monday to Friday (with the bin being closed and the machine shut down on Friday at the last collection of the week.)

 

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Welcome to the University Library

Welcome

Whether you’re a fresher or a final year student we want to help you get the most from your Library. From discovering resources to finding the right study space, to where to go to get help with your coursework. We’ve made a short video so if you’ve only a few minutes to spare it’s all you need to get started….

 

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Change is coming to the Philip Robinson Library

This summer will see the refurbishment of key features of our main Level 2 space as we make it more welcoming, attractive, and efficient for all library users.

Work will be taking place between June and September 2019, during which a temporary service desk will be in place, and the Student Text Collection, exhibition space, book bins, and self-service units will be relocated. Drinks and snacks will still be available from a coffee cart whilst the café is being refurbished.

Library services will continue as normal.

  • The PC cluster, Your Space and silent study areas on Levels 3 & 4 of the library will remain accessible.
  • Student Text Collection texts and book reservations will be available.
  • Inter Library Loan and Research Reserve requests will be processed as normal.
  • You will still be able to issue and return items yourself.
  • Laptop, headphone, and short-term locker loans will be issued as normal.

However, there will be building work in progress during library opening times and there will be some noisy periods. Free disposable earplugs will be available at the Service Desk.

Alternative study spaces are available in Walton, Law and Marjorie Robinson Library Rooms, and you can use the Find a PC on the University app to locate alternative cluster PC’s and check availability.

Building a better library experience

The modernised Level 2 space includes these new features:

  • a redesigned ‘Welcome’ point and ‘Library Help’ desk.
  • a reconfigured social learning space
  • an automated book returns sorter and new self-issue machines
  • a relocated exhibition space
  • a fully refurbished cafe

The works are due to begin week commencing 17th June. If you have any queries please speak to a member of Customer Services staff at the Service Desk or via Library Help.

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Welcome from the SAgE Library Team

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Welcome from the SAgE Library Team

Need specific subject help?

The SAgE Library Team provide support for students and staff from the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering. Julia Robinson is the Liaison Librarian for the Schools of Natural & Environmental Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics & Physics. Lorna Smith is the Liaison Librarian for the Schools of Computing and Engineering. The rest of the team work for the whole SAgE Faculty: Catherine Dale is Assistant Liaison Librarian and Yvonne Davison, Susan Millican and Christina Taylor are Liaison Assistants.

So what can we help you with? We can:

  • Direct you to quality information
  • Help with study and research skills
  • Advise on how to evaluate information sources
  • Help you to navigate databases

… and much more!

We’re here to help you get the best from the Library’s services and resources so feel free to contact us at any time. Come and find us on level 4 of the Philip Robinson Library, email us at lib-sage@ncl.ac.uk, book a one-to-one appointment, or follow us on Twitter @ncllibsage.

For more information, check out the Subject Guides.

We look forward to meeting you!

 

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School of Pharmacy – Your Pharmacy Library Guide

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Calling all Stage 4 Pharmacy students

Are you doing your Literature Review or Systematic Review as part of your Stage 4 studies, then the Pharmacy Library Guide can help you.

The Journal and Database section of the guide will give you direct links to all the relevant databases for searching the literature including:

  • Medline
  • Embase
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • and more

In the Database Video Tutorial section on the right hand side of the page you will find two short video explaining how to use Medline and Embase.

If you are having trouble getting started then our Academic Skills Resources: Dissertations and Resource Projects tool is here to give you a few pointers.

Getting Help

You can also access the Help options from the Subject Help and News tab in the Pharmacy Guide.

Other Resources to help you:

The Endnote Guide can assist you with managing your references.

The Referencing Guide will show you how to reference your articles correctly should you need it.