Connect XVI: Home

Hello and welcome to the Connect newsletter which highlights service and resource updates to help you make effective use of your library and learning services.

Welcome to the Spring Edition of Connect!
Welcome to 2024!  If you are new to the library the best place to start is the Welcome to the Library which offers lots of information about library resources and services.

A few highlights for this term -

• New Spring Webinar Programme
• How your library supports equality, inclusion and diversity...
• Highlights resources, including ResourceBank, new books and artists books
• What does my library do for me?
• Got the January Blues?
• And lots more...

and remember we are here to help - Contact the Library.

A new and exciting programme of library and learning webinars has been scheduled for the new term.  For more information and joining details see - Library & Learning Webinars.

Don't worry if you miss a webinar - Library & Learning Webinars also gives you access to recordings of these and previous webinars.

The Librarians are currently developing the collections so they are inclusive and reflect a diversity of voices and identities.

If you'd like to know more about what the library is doing, check out - How does the Library support Equality Diversity and Inclusion?  This includes links to themed reading lists, details of our Zines collections and other useful resources which encourage you to expand your research.

If you have ideas and suggestions about how the library is developing the collections please get in touch... 

It is a useful online resource where you can find past dissertations that received a 70%+ grade from the last three years; these are organised by subject areas but can also be searched via course name and code. 

ResourceBank is also home to digitised collections from the University's Archives and Special Collections, including Tessa Boffin’s Research Slides, the front covers of Artists’ Books and Zines, and animations from the Bob Godfrey archive.

Archives and Special Collections has been shopping!  21 new titles for the Artists Book Collection were purchased at the annual Small Publishers Fair, London, October 2023.   Examples demonstrate creating and constructing an artist book and works on paper - spanning themes of architecture, music, health, and communication.  The new titles can be viewed at Farnham campus library and front covers have been digitised and are available on ResourceBank.

Did you know that PressReader offers you free access to nearly 7,000 of the world’s best newspapers and magazines?
 
Over the last 3 months you have read, for example -

• 5,162 lifestyle stories
• 3,513 society stories
• 4, 171 business stories

The library is offering an exciting series of webinars for research staff and PhD students as part of the University's Researcher Development Programme. Webinars planned so far include -

For more information and joining details see - Researcher Development Webinars.

Recordings of previous research webinars can also be found on myUCA. If there are other webinars you'd like to see added please get in touch.

More free books due for release in 2024!

The UK has a new national policy on open access books, this requires researchers who have funding from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) to publish their books via Open Access.

If you are a researcher who needs help with Open Access, take a look at - Open Access Publishing.

For more information about Open Access and the resources available, take a look at - Open Access Resources.

Your library delivered £768,000 of resources such as books, journals, databases, and streaming video just for you!

In addition, during 2023 the library brought you –

• 3 library webinar programmes
• over 1,000 dissertations online
• the academic integrity toolkit
• zine making workshops
• Click & Collect extended to include 7-day loans
• guidance on using Artificial Intelligence in your assessments
• myUCA Ultra
• 16 new journal subscriptions to support your study
• 6 new database subscriptions
• over 30,000 streaming films via Kanopy
• academic writing support from Studiosity
• and delivered over 942 hours of workshops, tutorials and webinars!

January is here!  Cold, wet and dark - the January Blues manifests itself as feelings of low mood, sadness, lack of motivation, tiredness and low energy. Increase your positively with the Library's Mental Health and Wellbeing Reading List.

Emma Hallett
Metadata & Resources Librarian

Hi, I’m Emma and I work in the Library as the Metadata & Resources Librarian. 

Metadata refers to the structured information that describes a particular resource, for example, the title, author and date of a book . Using metadata, my job is to ensure our resources are fully described, allowing them to be found within LibrarySearch using a range of search terms, keywords and filters. I am also responsible for ensuring that physical items can then be located on the Library shelves using the correct classification number. 

Projects I am currently working on are: the reclassification of Product Design, meaning books at 745.4 will slowly be moving location to 744 in a more logical order; exploring alternative thesauri to describe our resources more accurately, for example, Homosaurus for LGBTQ+ related items, particularly zines; and amending out-dated subject terms in line with international changes to standards.