Monthly Archives: January 2015

Citation Managers, Classics, Department of History, Earth Sciences, English Literature, Geography, Library Updates, Referencing, Study Skills

Spring Term Library Workshops

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Happy New Term! And with it comes new training workshops from the Library.

Last year, in the Autumn Term we saw 6547 students – that’s equivalent to all of the students in the Arts and Sciences faculties put together!

We’ve had some really nice and positive feedback on our sessions too…

 

[I] would definitely like to attend more of these workshops after attending this one

[The Librarian] who gave the workshop was very articulate, concise and knowledgeable.

this course showed me how to navigate [the Library website] efficiently to get to the parts that I need.

I thought everything we covered was of use.

But that’s not all – we’re always looking to  improve the workshops, so we’re keen to hear suggestions for more sessions, or changes we can make too.

I would be interested in attending a workshop on the more advanced features of EndNote.

So the workshops are great, but what’s on offer this term? All of our training can be found on the Training page of your subject guide, and you will need to register to attend (but this is free and easy to do – email us if you have any trouble).

Working on a dissertation or essay? Come to our Search Our Stuff and Find It Faster workshops on 17th and 26th February and practice search techniques.

New to referencing and bibliographies? RefWorks is a great resource for undergraduates, and EndNote is a powerful postgraduate referencing tool – come along on 28th January or 5th February to find out more. And if you’re already using RefWorks, but have questions, come to our Question and answer session on 11th March.
If you’ve only got half an hour to spare, or think RefWorks and EndNote aren’t for you, come to Bedford Library on 3rd March and get acquainted with free Zotero referencing. Researchers might find our half hour session on social referencing site Mendeley useful too.

Every Tuesday throughout Spring Term, Bedford Library room 2-03 hosts our Bitesize, subject specific workshops.

Something missing? Send an email to library@rhul.ac.uk and request a session!

Library Search

Using LibrarySearch – RHUL Library on YouTube

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If you’re just starting to use LibrarySearch to find information for your assignments you might find this playlist useful – we’ve a range of videos to help you get to grips with using LibrarySearch to manage your account and find what you need.

 

 

For more video help, go to LibraryRHUL on YouTube.

Journals, Library Search

Finding recent magazine issues using Nexis UK

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Browsing journals online can be difficult, depending on the database that you have to use to access them. You can use the ‘Journals by Title’ search in LibrarySearch to find a publication.

Some are very easy to use, and make it clear where the most recent issue is – such as in the video above.

Here are some examples relevant to Media Arts which are a little more complicated…

Accessing Variety using the FIAF database

To look up access options for the Variety magazine, go to LibrarySearch (librarysearch.rhul.ac.uk) and use the ‘Journals by Title’ search:

librarysearchvariety

Select ‘View Online’ to see the access options:

varietyaccessoptions

 

If you’re using FIAF, you should be taken to a page with some bibliographic information on the journal, and under ‘List of issues’ a collapsible list of contents pages, which should link to the PDF of articles wherever possible:

varietyFIAF

Click ‘PDF’ to view the article.

Accessing Screen International using the Nexis UK database

Some publications, like ‘Screen International’ are only available via the Nexis UK database. You will need to follow the link to Nexis, but then try using the date range filters to narrow down the range of articles. Clicking ‘Search’ should take you to a recent list.

 

If you have any questions about accessing publications, leave a comment or email library@royalholloway.ac.uk.

Library Updates

Re-Welcome week for all students!

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To our new International students, welcome! To our returning students, welcome back! To everyone, Happy New Year!

We’ve been working hard over the Autumn Term & the Christmas Vacation to ensure that this year the Library is better than ever for our users, from first years to finalists, PhD students to academics: we are here to help.

If you haven’t used them yet, the Library’s subject guides should be a first port of call for all your subject related needs. Please check them out & let us know what you think! Plus new ‘video tutorials’, moodle courses, lists of online resources and don’t forget LibrarySearch.

Week beginning 12/01/2015
During the first week of term, the library will be offering extra help and support for your essays and assignments. Come along to Bedford Library and we will be happy to spend some time showing you how to easily search for and find information on your topics and how to use the relevant resources for your topics. We can even help you with your bibliographies and references for your essays!

More Books?
In 2014, we spent over £26,000 on books that students requested. If there’s a book you need for your studies, suggest it to us!

Study Space Assistants
Say hi to our study space assistants they’lll be around the Library this Term, helping to find spaces to study and tweeting availability.

Opening hours
This term, Bedford Library will be open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week – 146 hours a week in total!

Information Skills training
We’re offering an extensive training programme this term. Find out more and sign up via our training pages.

English Literature

Finding Shakespeare

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There are so many books written by and about Shakespeare, that the Dewey Decimal system (which we use to classify books by subject on the shelves) has allocated a number just for Shakespeare. At Royal Holloway, we put all of our Shakespeare collection in 824 – which is on the Ground Floor of Founder’s Library.

Shakespeare collection

After a lot of questions, we’ve realised it’s pretty difficult to find what you’re after in this section, so we’ve hoping this blog post and some better signs will help you to find the book that you need!

In a nutshell, there’s so much under 824, that the classification system has to use letters after 824 to distinguish between the different kinds of work available: biographies, criticism on plays, copies of plays, collections of plays… If you’re using LibrarySearch to find books, make sure to write down the whole location number e.g. 824 B SCH 

824 B

 

I’m looking for a biography of Shakespeare or information on his life.

Try 824 B.

You’ll find books such as William Shakespeare : a compact documentary life; William Shakespeare : a biography; Shakespeare revealed: a biography and Shakespeare’s other lives : an anthology of fictional depictions of the Bard.

I’m looking for general criticism on Shakespeare, or criticism on the Comedies, Tragedies, Histories as a group.

Try 824 D.

You’ll find books such as A Companion to Shakespeare Studies; Studying Shakespeare : a guide to the plays and Shakespeare : three problem plays.

I’m looking for books on Shakespeare’s style and use of language.

These are under 824 E.

Here you’ll find books such as Shakespearean Sentences : a study in style and syntax and Shakespeare’s Errant Texts.

I’ve been told to read a play in the Arden Shakespeare Collection/The Oxford Shakespeare Collection.

The Arden Collection is a group of publications, and they are kept in order of title under 824 M.

I want to research a play, or poem.

You will find individual copies of plays, and lots of criticism on those individual plays under 824 O to 824 Z.

The classification then uses numbers to distinguish between plays, but we would recommend using LibrarySearch to find a specific book that you’re interested in, and then going to that place on the shelf.

As a general guide:

824 O to 824 R = Comedies and criticism on Shakespeare’s comedies
824 S to 824 V = Tragedies and criticism on Shakespeare’s tragedies
824 W to 824 X = Histories and criticism on Shakespeare’s tragedies
824 Y = Sonnets and criticism on Shakespeare’s sonnets

Shakespeare classmarks