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.

Law Library 101

To all our new students – WELCOME TO THE LAW LIBRARY!
To all our returning students – WELCOME BACK!Welcome to Law Library

During your time here you will need to use all sorts of resources to find:

Cases
Acts
Statutory Instruments
Journal Articles
Textbooks
Reports and Government Publications
And the rest!

We have a lot on our shelves, but also a lot more online.  So, where to start when trying to find what you’re looking for?

THE LAW SUBJECT GUIDE OF COURSE! 

Law Subject Guide

Click on the image above to take you to this one-stop shop of useful links and helpful tips to get you finding what you need.

And don’t forget us – your Law Librarians!  We’re here to help you with whatever we can.  What we don’t know, we’ll find out.

Politics: explore the best resources for your subject

As we are a few weeks into the start of term, it’s time to think about doing some wider reading for your assignments or perhaps making a start on your research project or dissertation. Library Search is a great place to start when you’re looking for information. In one simple search you will find books, Ebooks, journal articles and more.

However, there are times when you want to narrow down your search by limiting yourself to a subject specific database, such as Scopus or Web of Science. Perhaps you are looking for a particular type of information like election results, national referenda, changes in government so you could use the interactive Political Data Yearbook.

That’s where your library Subject Guide can help. We have put together your Subject Guide so that you are able to find the best resources and advice for your programme, all in one place.

We have grouped together the most relevant journal collections, databases, eBook collections and specialist resources we have, so that you don’t need to go hunting for the right database from the 300+ available at Newcastle University.

You will find links to Support for your studies too. These quick links will take you to resources to help you develop your own academic skills, including tools to help you plan a search, quizzes to test your knowledge and advice on how to find, evaluate and reference the best information for your academic work.