Category Archives: Library Updates

Book moves in Founder’s Library

Summer update 2: Moving!

There have been 5 moves over the summer – all related to creating a bit of space for study, and for lots more books.

1. French Collection move

The French Literature Collection (840-849) has been moved from Founder’s First Floor East & Founder’s Ground Floor East to Founder’s Basement West (where the Founder’s print journals used to be, just below the linguistics and Shakespeare collections). This is to enable us to create 32 extra and much needed study spaces in Founder’s First Floor East.

FrenchCollection

2. Hispanic Collection move

The Hispanic Literature Collection (860 – 869) used to belocated along the wall in the room below Founder’s Help Desk. It has been moved to Founder’s Ground Floor East (just before the Classics Collection).

SpanishCollection

3. Music Collection expansion

In order to create much needed space in the Music book and scores collections, these will now be spaced out in both sections of Founder’s First Floor East (Music previously occupied just the back section).

MusicCollection

4. Print journals move

The Arts & Humanities print journals collection in Founder’s (which used to live in the Founder’s basement)  has now been moved to Bedford Level 1. This means that all of our print journals for all subjects are in one place, and one continuous alphabetical sequence. (NB – material previously housed in the off-site Depository has remained there).
This move has taken place in order to move the French collection into Founder’s basement and create the 32 study spaces mentioned above. And it should make browsing print journals much, much easier!

JournalCollection

Finally, the big move:

5. Classics Re-classification & move of some material to Bedford

The Classics Collection classification in Founder’s (870 – 889) was over 30 years out of date and had created a major problem as large numbers of texts had the same classmark (e.g. 100’s of books all at 888 ARI – argh!). Over the years concerns have been raised by staff and students about the difficulty of locating the books that they needed.

Some Classics books (classmarks 888 etc) remain in Founder's Library.
Some Classics books (classmarks 888 etc) remain in Founder’s Library.

We have now re-classified the Classics Collection to the latest Dewey classification standard. The re-classification has resulted in a substantial number of books being moved to Bedford as they were re-classified under Philosophy, Ethics, Politics etc.

Some books will be classified under Philosophy (100s), some under Politics (320s).
Some books will be classified under Philosophy (100s), some under Politics (320s).

 

However, all of the new classification numbers are listed on the library catalogue. So when you’re checking your reading list, look out for ‘Bedford Library’ under location.

Using the books in Founder’s Library

There is a collection of older Classics books located at the end of the reclassified run of Classics books in Founder’s with blue dots on the spines. These books are not on the catalogue and will be reviewed over the coming year and those that are to be kept will be catalogued and reclassified. Russell Burke will liaise closely with the Classics Department staff on this matter.

Please note that whilst these books are not on the catalogue, they are security tagged and can be taken out if you present them at the Help Desk. A member of staff will create a short record for them, and then issue them to you. Please do this!

New Study Space in Founder’s Library

Summer update 1: 32 new study spaces

Where?

In the First Floor East Reading Room of Founder’s Library. This is one up the stairs, and on the left (or right, if you’re using the lift).

map

 

The lovely Victorian reading room on the right (First Floor West) remains intact and beautiful as ever.

This photograph is very wonky (!), but it's of the Victorian Reading Room in the West of the Library (up the stairs and right).
This photograph is very wonky (!), but it’s of the Victorian Reading Room in the West of the Library (up the stairs and right).

How?

Old metal shelves in that section have been removed, leaving behind wooden shelves and a lot of space for seats.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154513630890298.1073741826.228847215297&type=3
Empty metal shelves in First Floor East.

The metal shelves were dismantled, and replaced with new seating, which made it look a  bit like this for a while:

No more metal shelves! Taken from the Music collection, facing out into the corridor (Victorian reading room through the green doors at the end of the picture).
No more metal shelves!
Taken from the Music collection, facing out into the corridor (Victorian reading room through the green doors at the end of the picture).

And once it was tidied up, this was the finished product.

FFEfinal

desk

So where did the books go?

The French Literature Collection (840-849) has been moved from Founder’s First Floor East & Founder’s Ground Floor East to Founder’s Basement West (where the Founder’s print journals used to be, just below the linguistics collections).

AND in order to create much needed space in the Music book and scores collections, these have been spaced out in both sections of Founder’s First Floor East – on the shelves in the photo above. (Music previously occupied just the back section).

Why?

The Libraries always need more space, and in recent years there haven’t been many changes to Founder’s Library. This should make it a bit easier to find somewhere silent to study in the Libraries. It’s also given the Music collection lots of room to spread out – no more peering up at the high shelves for scores!

1000s more ebooks added to LibrarySearch

This month Library has added 1000s more ebooks covering all subject areas have been added to LibrarySearch. This is in addition to the large collection of ebooks already available to RHUL students, researchers & staff.

To find ebooks, just search for book titles as normal and if the ebook is available it will appear alongside print titles in the results list. Or select ‘Full text available’ from filter list on the left hand menu in the LibrarySearch results page.

(See the ‘how to find ebooks’ video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXrhB6L5D6c )

Search for ebooks on LibrarySearch

PLEASE NOTE: some ebooks offer a ‘preview’ of the first 50 pages before allowing you to access the rest of the content. If you receive a notice to say that you can preview the first 50 pages of the book (pages 1 to 50), but you want to view further than page 50, then click on the preview and then wait for 5 minutes. You should then see the following message:

“Preview Expired. The 5 minute, 50 page preview has expired. Would you like to continue reading? This will unlock the entire book”

Just click on ‘Continue reading’ and you can access the whole text.

This should all work smoothly, but if you have any problems accessing these texts, or if you want to check if a text is available as an ebook, just ask at the Library Help Desk or email:

library@rhul.ac.uk and we will look into this for you.

End of term tips: Borrowing books over the Winter break

Don’t forget! The Library’s opening hours will change over the Winter break:

Monday 16th December until Monday 23rd December 2013

Monday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00
Saturday & Sunday CLOSED

Tuesday 24th December 2013 until Wednesday 1st January 2014 inclusive

Both libraries are closed.

Thursday 2nd January until Sunday 5th January

Thursday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00
Saturday & Sunday CLOSED

Monday 6th January until Sunday 12th January 2014

Monday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00
Saturday & Sunday 08:30 – 21:00

How long can you borrow books for?

If you want to borrow books over the holidays, our loan periods will be changing and – good news! – you can borrow books for longer! Just remember to bring them back, and you can always check your account online while we’re away for Christmas.

Undergraduate normal loans Issued from Fri. 6th December due by Fri. 17th January 2014
Postgraduate normal loans Issued for six weeks from date of loan
One week loans Issued from Sat. 7th December due by Thurs. 16th January 2014
Three day loans Issued from Wed. 11th December due by Wed. 15th January 2014
Staff journals Issued from Fri. 20th December due by Thurs. 2nd January 2014
Postgraduate journals Issued from 15.30 Fri. 20th December due by 11.00 Thurs. 2nd January 2014
Rolling loans & Music A/V – Undergraduates, Postgraduates & Staff Issued from Fri. 20th December due on Thurs. 2nd Jan. 2014
Short loans (Advanced Booking Items) Issued from 9.00 on Fri. 13th December due by 16.00 on Tues.14th January 2014

Who’s citing Who? the event!

who's citing who

When: 30th October 2013

Where: HITT Lab

(PC lab through the Horton Building)

Book Now:

http://whoscitingwho.eventbrite.com/

 

The Library in 3 words: The Liaison Team

Some of the Library liaison team were asked to describe working in the Library, in only 3 words.
It was a lot easiest for some more than others!

We hope you are enjoying our videos- there are many more to watch!

 

 

What are you most looking forward to?

Some of the Library Liaison team were asked what they were most looking forward to in the upcoming year.

Lots of changes are happening this year in the Library, keep up to date with improvements to the Library on our blog, the website and via Facebook & Twitter:

www.facebook.com/rhul.library

https://twitter.com/RHUL_Library

Meet the Library Liaison team: Lucinda Lyon

The Library staff were interviewed about themselves, their roles and much more!

Lucinda is the Subject Librarian for Criminology and Sociology, Economics, Management, Social Work.

Meet the Liaison team: Nancy Pontika

The Library staff were interviewed about themselves, their roles and much more!   Read Nancy’s interview below and let us know what you think!

pontikaBW

Good Morning, if you’d like to start by introducing yourself        

My name is Nancy Pontika and I am… What do I need to say?

Your job title I guess?

I am the Information Consultant for Research at Royal Holloway, Bedford Library, University of London.

How long have you been at RHUL Library?

Well, I’ve been here since the 24th of June, with a long break for vacation.  So, actually it’s been a little over a month.

What is your role within the Library?

My role is to provide advice on Research. So everything that has to do with publishing, copyrights and open access, such as gold open access, green open access, funders’ policies. Now with the RCUK policy in place I deal with everything that has to do with Article Processing Charges (APCs), complying with the RCUK Open Access Policy, and in general just helping researchers on how to do things right.

Have you always worked in Libraries?

I have always worked in Libraries! Apart from small breaks when I was doing my PhD where I worked at the Tech Lab and at the Academic Technology.

My Undergrad degree is in Library Science and even before I graduate I’ve been working in Libraries. When I went to Boston to pursue the PhD at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, I worked at the Tech Lab, where I was offering technology workshops to students. We would also have some hours where we would help the students with the “technology” they had to use for their courses, such as HTML, CSS, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Mediawiki etc. When I was working at the Academic Technology I was doing some workshops there too, but those were both to faculty/ staff and students and both online and face to face. I was also producing some educational materials, like hand-outs, printed and online versions, online tutorials, postcards and other informative leaflets.

What did you want to be when you were little?

I don’t know. I guess I wanted to be a journalist. But while I was growing up I realized that there are not a lot of “secure” jobs in the field.

Do you have any heroes and if you do, why are they your heroes?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is my hero. He’s the person who invented the World Wide Web and the beauty is that he just donated it to the world, he gave it for free. Such a great invention! The World Wide Web totally changed my life and the lives of so many people. So yeah, put him down.

He changed the way we search for and retrieve information. The way information is presented to us and the way information has a meaning to us. For example when we do our shopping online or check the weather. I don’t know how people used to check the weather in the past! Did they sit in front of the TV and wait for the weather forecast? I can’t imagine my life without the World Wide Web. If you want to “punish” me give me a laptop without access to the World Wide Web. I will be so miserable.

What’s your degree in?

Well, I have an UG degree in Library & information Systems and I got this in Athens, Greece. I don’t have a master, I went straight for the PhD. My PhD is in Library and Information Science with a speciality on Information Science. If you wanted to narrow this down, I would say that I specialize on Open Access and more specifically on Funders’ Policies.

Do you have a favourite book [in library], and why?

The favourite book in the Library is Peter Suber ‘s book on Open Access. And why?  Because Open Access is my field of interest. It is also a great book. Peter breaks down the components of open access and the details so simply. You know he has a PhD in philosophy so he can use arguments very well! They all just make sense.

If you had a superhero alter ego, what would they be named, and what would your super power be?

The superpower would be the free of cost access to information so that everyone can have access. Diminishing all these worries regarding research, like promotion and impact factors, and just do research for the pleasure of doing research. This is a very competitive world for researchers. And the name for that would be… you tell me.

Open Access lady? Information Hero?

It would be the Researcher.

Oh that’s good!

The Free Researcher!

What project/event are you most looking forward to in the upcoming year? (Library related!)

I guess I am looking forward for the Open Repositories (OR14) Conference. It is in Helsinki and I’ve never been there before.

Describe working in the library in 3 words

Fun, there is cooperation and… quiet.

What advice would you give to a new student?

Be able to prioritise things. It’s not good to study all the time but it’s not good to party all the time. I guess students must be able to distinguish between the fun periods and the not so fun periods during the semester.

Would you rather, only be able to read the same book for the rest of your life but forget it as soon as you’ve read it, or never be able to read the same book twice?

I think the second, because I am kind of like the second. I can’t read the same the book twice unless it’s a book I have to memorise parts of it.

 Okay, cool that’s everything.  Thank you!

Thank you

Who is your Hero?

Some of the Library liaison team were asked if they had any heroes, check out this video to see if you share a hero with any of them!

Catch the Library Liaison team 10am-12 noon everyday throughout Welcome Week in the Welcome Week tent in the South Quad.

Check out our Twitter https://twitter.com/RHUL_Library for further details