New resource: Library of Latin Texts
The Library has purchased access to the Library of Latin Texts (series A and B) following a well-received trial.
This database gathers together Latin texts of all genres and from all periods. Series A contains over 4,000 texts by nearly 1,400 authors, from the beginning of Latin literature to the modern era.
The companion Series B gathers Latin texts of all genres and periods, with the aim of more rapidly integrating a huge number of Latin texts into online form.
Together, the two databases form one large linguistic corpus, with sophisticated tools enabling a variety of search and analytical methods, with the stated objective being simply summarised as “who said what, when, where, and how many times?”
The databases are updated regularly, and can also be used to read texts as a whole.
You can read more about the database, or access it directly from Library Search.
New resource: The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot: The Critical Edition
The Library has recently bought access to this major eight volume online work.
For the first time ever, the eight volumes gather together all of T.S. Eliot’s collected, uncollected and unpublished prose, making available material that has been restricted or inaccessible until now.
The content includes letters, essays, lectures, commentaries and transcripts of broadcasts, and is annotated by leading Eliot scholars.
You can read more about the background to this significant collection here or watch the trailer:
The eight volumes are individually catalogued on Library Search: just search for complete prose Eliot to find them.
The Research Reserve and Desktop Delivery Service (DDS)
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a curious thing on Library Search. Where normally you would expect to see the name of one of the libraries next to an item’s shelfmark, occasionally you’ll see “Research Reserve”.
If you’ve ever wondered just what exactly the Research Reserve is, this is the blog for you, discover here exactly what the Research Reserve can offer you and your studies.
The Research Reserve is the Library’s stores, located throughout campus and including a state-of-the-art storage facility in the Team Valley. These facilities allow the Library to keep less-used material for much longer than other academic libraries. These combined storage facilities provide over 29 kilometres of storage space, which is used to house old editions of journals and books which are consulted infrequently.
You can loan a variety of materials from the Research Reserve, including: books, theses and journal volumes. These can be requested from Library Search. Simply log in using your campus ID, find the item you are looking for and then click the blue “Request Scan/Borrow” button. You’ll get a choice of pickup locations (either the Walton or Philip Robinson libraries).
There are request forms to complete if you’d like to borrow a thesis or an entire volume of a journal.
Requests can be viewed by going to “My Account” in Library Search and clicking on “My Requests” from the drop down menu. If you’d like to cancel your request, simply click the blue cancel hyperlink (as seen below). You’ll receive an email confirming your cancellation shortly afterwards.
There is a collection service that runs between the Research Reserve and the various libraries (weekdays only, not on bank holidays) and your request will be generally be fulfilled within 24 hours. Anything requested on a Friday or over the weekend will be delivered on the following Monday afternoon.
Once your item has arrived at your chosen library, you’ll receive an email letting you know it’s available to loan. The item will be kept on the reservations shelves for five days before being returned to the Team Valley, or passed on to the next person in the reservation queue. Items from the Research Reserve are issued in the same way as standard long loan items, either using the self-issue machines or at the service desk. Once you’ve finished with the item, simply return it as normal.
The Desktop Delivery Service (DDS)
The Desktop Delivery Service (DDS) allows you request a scanned article from a journal held in one of the Library’s stores. Articles can be requested via Library Search (same as a book) or by filling out the relevant request form. Please try and include as much detail as possible on your request form. This helps Library staff locate your article and fulfil your request quicker.
You are only able to request one scanned article per journal issue. The scanned article will be delivered to your University email address, where it can be downloaded and printed off. Requests are generally fulfilled within 24 hours, although this may take longer over the weekends or on bank holidays. You have 30 days to download your article before it is ‘archived’ and no longer available.
We do not scan items that are available electronically or can be borrowed.
If you have any other queries about the Desktop Delivery Service, read the FAQs.
You can also visit the off-campus Research Reserve facility in the Team Valley. Daily access is available by appointment only with the Research Reserve team, weekdays between 10AM and 4PM. Access outside of these hours can be organised given sufficient notice. There is a large car park available at the facility and buses stop nearby.
Full contact information, directions and opening hours for the Team Valley facility are available via the Library website.
GUEST POST – OFF THE SHELF
Hi! I’m Caitlin, a final year law student and law library aide – and by now I’m used to the stress of exams and deadlines.
I tried the ‘poetry-pick me up’ after going into the common room for a revision break.
I stumbled across Sue (@kind_curious) in the Law School Student Common Room, where she asked, ‘do you want a poem?’. Not really knowing what to expect, I had to overcome a bit of social awkwardness! I was surprised by Sue’s passion and love of poetry, which was clear in the way she spoke about how she’d used poetry in the NHS before and it was what she enjoyed most.
I was asked questions about my current stress levels and how I was feeling with exams, and how I dealt with stress. I told her that when I get stressed I talk even more than usual, which for anyone who knows me sounds like I’m going at a million miles an hour, and she suggested something that would relax me.
I laughed as I saw no signs of chocolate or Netflix – my usual go to relaxation strategies.
Instead she said I needed something like a lavender bubble bath – again I saw no sign of a bubble bath in the Law School and I’d yet to find one in the Dungeon.
She picked out two poems that would make me feel like the relaxing in lavender: she suggested ‘Sonnet’ by Elizabeth Bishop and Shennagh Pugh’s ‘What if This Road’.
What if this road reminded me of Robert Frost’s ‘A Road Not Taken’, and was great for me as a an indecisive person. It was matched perfectly to the questions that Sue had asked me, as I read it as a ‘roll with it’ approach to life, which is definitely needed to cope with exams and deadline stress.
The second poem, Bishop’s ‘Sonnet’, had great visualisation techniques, almost like a meditative poem – which was spot on to turn off the stress and slow everything down!
The experience was a great switch off from deadline stress, and a great use of the 10 minutes which I’d usually scroll through twitter or Instagram. It was something different, and really quite unique and relaxing, which I would definitely recommend to help have a break from any exam and deadline stress!
Resource in focus: Frantext
Frantext is a French language corpus, and a useful research tool for French linguistics.
It contains the full text of 5,400 French language texts, mainly published between the 16th and 21st centuries (though there are some earlier works). 90% of the texts are literary (including novels, poetry and memoirs) with the rest being mainly technical in nature. It aims to represent the diversity of written French, and contains 256 million words.
Once you have accessed Frantext, click on Frantext intégral to access the full corpus, or Frantext démonstration to access a selection of 40 texts and explore how it works.
On the top menu, choose Corpus to view different corpora (for example, Old French) or create your own corpus: intégral will search the entire corpus.
Select Recherche to search for a word, or series of words (note the different search options in the sub-menu):
Select Liste de mots to view or create a word list (for example, days of the week).
For more information about recent enhancements to Frantext, choose nouvelles fonctionalités from the home page.
Resource in Focus: Times Literary Supplement Archive
We have access to the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) archive from 1902-2014.
The archive brings you the full content of this world-renowned weekly literary and arts publication, dating back to its first issue. For over a century, the TLS has published reviews, features, debates and original works from across the arts world, not to mention its legendary letters page!
Many of the world’s most notable writers and thinkers have contributed to the TLS over the decades, including T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Noam Chomsky, Virginia Woolf, Bertolt Brecht and Umberto Eco. Until 1974, contributions published in the TLS were often anonymous, but the digital archive now reveals the identity of all contributors.
To find out more about the TLS, click Research Tools to read a selection of essays about different periods of its history.
You can browse the TLS by date to find a specific issue, or search in various ways (choose Advanced Search to see all options, including searching by contributor, book title, or document type.)
Additional search features on the home page include Term Frequency, to trace how often a word, phrase or person has featured in the TLS over the years, and Topic Finder, to explore and visualise connections between topics.
As the TLS archive is published by the company Gale, you can cross-search it with any of the other Gale archives to which we have access, via Gale Primary Sources.
Exams: we are here to help
Exams are a tricky time. Often you will be juggling different exams themselves, on top of other deadlines. However, we want you to know that you aren’t alone at this crazy time of year. We are here to help you through.
But how exactly can we help? Sadly, we can’t take go into the exam with you, or magically freeze time to give you more hours in the day, but do make the most of the following:
- Library Help – the place to go when have a question via chat, email, text, twitter, Facebook. Or alternatively search our Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) database.
- Librarians – yes you heard right. Book a one-to-one appointment to get the best out of the University Library resources. Also remember our staff in every library are friendly and approachable. There is no such thing as a silly question, so ask away!
- Study Space – The University Library has a range of different study rooms and spaces to suit your needs.
- 24/7 – The Philip Robinson Library is open 24/7 during the exam period. We want you to sleep and get enough rest, but if you do need to study through the night, we are here.
- Subject guides – we have a range of subject guides put together by expert librarians which draw together all the main resources for your studies.
- Be well@NCL collection – we don’t just have books for study. This new collection includes tried and tested books that support your wellbeing.
- Additional support – don’t suffer and please don’t be shy. You can seek additional support from your NUSU, Student Wellbeing Service, Nightline and the University chaplaincy.
So remember……pace yourself, access the help you need and believe that you can do this!
Drama Online: what’s new?
The Library has subscribed to Drama Online for several years. This resource contains the text of over 2,200 international plays, from ancient to contemporary, together with contextual resources. It’s likely to be of interest to anyone studying literature, languages (ancient to modern), film studies and media.
We’ve recently upgraded our subscription to include the 2018/19 top-ups of the Nick Hern Books collection and the Core Collection (featuring plays published by Bloomsbury and Faber), giving us access to an additional 150 plays.
All the plays are individually catalogued and searchable via Library Search, or you can search/browse them all in various ways on the Drama Online site.
For example, using the options at the top of the screen, you can browse by title, author, genre and time period, or if you click Find Plays on the home page, you can add in other search filters, such as number of roles or scenes. Select Context and Criticism for access to a wide range of e-books about drama.
When viewing a play text, click Play Tools to analyse the speaking parts and appearances of different characters throughout the play.
Finally, follow @dramaonlinelib for news and features about this fantastic resource!
Historic newspaper archives upgrade
If you use any of our historic newspaper and periodical archives which are published by Gale, you’ll notice they have recently upgraded their platform.
There is no change to the content, but you should notice a more unified design on the search pages, together with improvements to the display of search results, plus new search tools, including ‘topic finder’ and ‘more like this’. You can also use ‘term frequency’ on all Gale databases to analyse the use of a particular term over time.
The following collections are affected:
British Library Newspapers; Burney Newspapers; Eighteenth Century Collections Online; Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
Together with these individual archives:
Picture Post; Punch; The Daily Mail; The Economist; The Financial Times; The Independent; The Listener; The Sunday Times; The Telegraph; The Times; The Times Literary Supplement.
Read more about the improvements.
Where can I find all these resources?
They are all individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can find quick links to them all (plus resources from other publishers) on our historic news guide. If you would like to search across several Gale resources at once, search Gale Primary Sources.
Where can I get more advice about searching historic newspapers online?
Watch our short video for lots of helpful tips.