Connect VII: Home

Library Webinars take place between 12.00 and 13.00 on Wednesday each week during term time and can be accessed online via myUCA.  The programme covers a wide range of topics, including  -

• referencing
• using electronic resources effectively
• introduction to the archives and using primary sources
• critical approaches to research resources
• using referencing software
• image referencing 
• copyright and intellectual property

For further information see - Library Webinars, where you will also find recordings of previous webinars.

The Library can also provide specific webinars in response to staff and student needs - get in touch with your ideas - Meet the Liaison Librarians.

Scan & Deliver for Research and Private Study
In March 2020 the Library introduced Scan & Deliver to support students and staff with their research and private study.  Scan & Deliver enables you to access the print collections when off-campus.  Copyright law in the UK allows you to request a reasonable proportion, and this would be one article from a journal or one chapter from a book for research and private study only - the scans cannot be shared with anyone else.  For more information about Scan & Deliver see Requesting Resources. 

Requests will be fulfilled as soon as possible and you will be kept informed of progress.

If you require more than one chapter or article please contact your Liaison Librarian for help - the team may be able to find an electronic version or alternative sources for you - see Meet the Liaison Librarians.

Digitised Readings for Teaching
The Library is permitted to scan, within limits, extracts for teaching from many books, journals and periodicals under the University's CLA Licence.  The limits are 10% or one chapter or article from a book or journal. The scans are delivered to you and your students via course and unit areas in myUCA using the reading list service - myReadingList.   The Library has delivered 729 scans for teaching so far this academic year.

Teaching staff can make a request using myReadingList within myUCA and selecting Request Digitisation.  Requests will be fulfilled as soon as possible and you will be kept informed of progress.

use LibrarySearch to find ebooks now

Do you know that the Library has lots more online books than print books? Over 186,000 book are online!  Since March 2020 the Library has added 830 new titles in response to course, staff and student requests.  In addition the Library has increased the number of popular titles as well as the range of publishers it purchases books from.

Electronic books are accessible 24/7 from any location with an internet connection and can be read on any computer or mobile device.  They are linked seamlessly from unit reading lists wherever available and are also automatically included in subject search results on LibrarySearch (marked with an orange ‘Online’ icon).

All electronic books (including many additional Open Access titles) can be found using LibrarySearch, where you can also search for a specific author or title using a few keywords.  For further information about accessing and using electronic books see the Off-Campus Guide.

If you need an electronic book which isn't in the Library collection you can make a recommendation - these are subject to availability and budget.  For more information about making a recommendation see Requesting Resources.

New for 2021 - digital magazines!  Library has now a subscription to a number of your favourite magazines.  Unlike the printed versions you can view these from anywhere and at any time you have Internet access. These can accessed by searching for the magazine in the Journals A-Z.

For the first time ever - you can now view over 300 dissertations and extended research projects from recent UCA students anywhere!  Here is a small sample -

view dissertations and extended research projects from 2020

The Library is now collecting dissertations and extended research projects digitally and making them available online to the UCA community for use in learning, teaching, and private research.

Dissertations and extended research projects are now available any time - on or off campus, and you can search and browse them by course, subject, or title.  Unlike physical dissertations, you can search the text and have a screen reader to read them to you.

The Library is collecting all undergraduate dissertations and extended research projects awarded 70% or above and all postgraduate dissertations awarded 65% or above, from across all UCA courses, and in accordance with the Dissertations and Theses Policy - they will be retained for three years.

Do you miss browsing the shelves in the library?

Then look out for enhancements coming soon to the Library Catalogue which will provide new ways to discover all the great books held across the University campus libraries.  Once you have found a title that looks useful you will see new sections that will make it easier to explore the collection virtually.

Browse the Shelves

Browse the shelves lets you view the other books ‘on the same shelf’ as the book you are looking at, this includes all books at any UCA campus.

You May Also Like

You may also like makes suggestions for alternative books based on the title you are viewing, highlighting other related and similar books that maybe of interest to you.

Digital Theatre+ hosts approximately 1000 films of live theatre productions from Broadway, the West End, and other theatres from across the world. These performances provide insights into production, staging, and acting.  “Teaching with DT+” provides course teams with case studies and toolkits which provide a range of useful teaching resources.

National Theatre Collection provides access to recordings of live theatre productions, from the archives of the UK’s National Theatre.

You can find these and many more specialist creative databases and resources on the Database A-Z.

Last summer the Library set up a reading list service (myReadingList) and over the autumn term it has been adopted by half of all course teams.

myReadingList allows course team to create reading lists for their students within course and unit areas of myUCA.  These enable students to find, access and organise their reading list resources quickly and easily.  myReadingList is available on all web browsers and devices.

When resources are not available electronically the Library offers a scanning service to help make more resources available online - see Digital Scanning Services (above) for more information.

Course teams - for more information about how you use myReadingList to help your students see myReadingList.
Students - for more information about reading lists see Reading Lists.