Information for Academic Staff and Researchers

• Teaching staff can borrow 35 items from the main collection and 4 short loan items.
• Items can be renewed and reserved online 24/7 via the My Account option on the Library catalogue.

• You can access the Library catalogue online both on and off campus.
• The catalogue provides a secure access route to our e-resources - databases, e- journals and e-books.
• The library catalogue covers the five site libraries, the Women’s Library and the TUC Library Collections.

• The library subscribes to a range of the most important e- journals, full text and bibliographic databases in your subject area.
• All e- resources are accessed via the catalogue or main library web page and most are accessible on or off campus via your IT username and password.
• Find Databases and use the various search options to find resources relevant to your area of teaching or research, or go to the relevant subject guide on the library webpages.
• Your Academic Liaison Librarian will be able to give you more details on what is available.

Academic liaison librarians work with academic staff to support teaching, learning and research in the university and help students succeed on their course.

• Find out who your Academic Liaison Librarian is.
• If you are a new member of staff, or just need to refresh your knowledge of the library and how it works, ask for a tour of the library and introduction to resources for your subjects.
• Academic Liaison Librarians play an active role in course validation and development and can help you prepare and review resource lists and offer advice on existing resources and how to link to them in your WebLearn module.

To ensure the resources you and your students need are available in the library.

• Please send your module resource/reading lists to your Academic Liaison Librarian before the beginning of each semester, and preferably at least six weeks before.
• Please include an estimate of number of students you expect to be taking the module.
• Please indicate whether items listed are for mandatory, recommended or background reading
• If there is a suitable alternative title or edition available, please avoid recommending out of print items to students for mandatory reading – they may find it difficult to buy copies.

• You may wish to recommend electronic resources (e-books and e-journal articles) where these are available, as these will be accessible on and off campus 24/7.
• Ask your Academic Liaison Librarian to check if a particular title is available as an e-book.
• To browse published e-book titles yourself, go to our main e-book supplier websites, Myilibrary and for Dawsonera log in using your institutional username and password. For EBL you need to register with EBL Choice.

• The University hold an Educational Recording Agency (ERA) license and an Open University License. Please ask your Academic Liaison Librarian about making off-air recordings to be put in stock.

See the library copyright pages or the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) for information or contact your Academic Liaison Librarian if unsure about what is allowed under the terms of our licence.

Under the terms of the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Copying and Scanning Licence, we now have the right to scan copyright documents and put them in WebLearn modules under certain conditions.

For information on how to add an item to WebLearn, click here.

Library Services will do the actual scanning if the document is one that can be legally copied and scanned and send you a pdf to add to your Weblearn module. Please fill in a Scanning Request sheet (click on the link below) for each document request and return to your Academic Liaison Librarian.

• Scanning Request Sheet.doc
  

Academic Liaison Librarians work with you to identify and address the information needs of your students, enabling them to make best use of an appropriate range of resources for their work.

• Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian to arrange information literacy sessions for your students, tailored to the needs of the course, module, assignment or project and delivered within the course timetable. We generally find that a series of short sessions is more effective than one long session.
• Interactive workshops/presentations covering the use of specific resources such as databases and other information literacy activities can be arranged including hands-on.
• Individual students in need of support can also make an appointment or go and see their Academic liaison librarian at one of the regular subject-oriented drop-in sessions.
• Please see the new Information Literacy section of our website at; for further information on this important topic.

Academic Liaison Librarians are available to provide help and advice on using research material available here, obtaining material from other libraries, and using other libraries and archive collections.

Library Services includes two internationally acclaimed collections managed by specialist librarians, archivists and museum curators.

• The Trades Union Congress (TUC) Library Collections
• The Women’s Library (TWL).

In addition there are a number of research collections that can be accessed across the University.

• Feedback from examiners and tutors has indicated that using special collections can significantly enhance student motivation and achievement.
  
  
• Special collections support teaching on a range of courses with individually taught sessions embedded within modules on a repeat basis - these can include student assignments based upon primary sources found in the collections.
  
  
• Special collections include a range of material much broader than the union and gender focus and provide an opportunity to research original source material across many subjects.

The library can get copies of articles or books from the British Library not held in stock in any of our libraries.

• Please check the catalogue before requesting an inter-library loan and then complete the loan request form online. We will contact you when the item has arrived.
• Staff can make 40 inter-library loan requests per year.
• Postgraduate (Masters) and Research students (MPhil and PhD) can make 30 requests.
• Consult your Academic Liaison Librarian for advice if you need help tracking down a publication.

Information on joining the British Library can be found on the British Library Help for Researchers pages.
You need to register yourself for a Reader Pass.
You can search the British Library catalogues.

• Zetoc is the British Library's Electronic Table of Contents service. The database covers 1993 to date, and is updated on a daily basis. It includes an email alerting service, to enable you to keep up-to-date with relevant new articles and papers. Material located on Zetoc can be obtained through the interlibrary loans service, or by visiting the British Library. Off- campus access: search Zetoc through the Library catalogue. On-campus access.

• To request a thesis go to EThOS and follow the links.
• If the thesis has already been digitised you will be able to download it straight away. You will be given a password to use, which records your use of the thesis for copyright reasons.
• If the thesis has not been requested before, you may have to wait up to ten days while a digital copy is made so that you can access it online.
• Occasionally you may be told that you will have to pay to access a thesis. In this case contact your Academic Liaison Librarian to see if the University is able to pay for this.

• The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) offers free full-text access to international theses and dissertations.
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal This project database offers full-text access to a number of European theses.
• OCLC WorldCat Theses & Dissertations Select Thesis/dissertation in the ‘content’ drop down menu. This database provides access to the dissertations and theses available in OCLC member libraries. Many of these are available electronically free directly from the publishing institution.
• Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) Many universities are making their theses available full text online. The Registry contains links to university repositories from around the world many of which contain theses. You can limit your search by country as required.
• For more information on e-theses and contents from other institutions' repositories, visit our e-theses page.

• Our large collection of e- resources - databases, e-books and e-journals – can be accessed directly through the library catalogue, or via the library webpages.
• A Subject Guide will provide a useful summary of the main online resources in your subject area.

• Referencing - Zotero is a free, open source extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser which can be freely downloaded to your PC. It enables users to collect, manage and cite their research sources.
  
  
• Software for Data Analysis - SPSS and NVivo research and data analysis software is available for use by researchers and can be downloaded for home use. For further information, please contact the ICT Helpdesk.

• SCONUL Access enables staff, students, and research students to borrow material from over 174 HE libraries in the UK and Ireland. For full details see our webpage.
• Inform25 is a service funded by the M25 Consortium of academic libraries within the M25 region and more widely within the East and South East. It allows a rapid search of several library catalogues at once, within a given geographical area. Check the Inform25 website for further information.
• The Copac® library catalogue gives free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, Specialist, and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library.

For more information see our page on Using Other Libraries.