Academic staff – have you sent us your Reading Lists?

6 weeks from now, our students will be back and ready to read. A common complaint is that the Library does not have the books you’ve recommended, or does not have enough copies.

Send us your Reading Lists now and we still have time to buy any new books needed before semester starts.

Send your Reading Lists to Eve Dick; contact Eve with any questions about ordering books or other material for the Library.

Interested in improving student access to key texts?

E-books can be accessed 24/7, on and off-campus. We already have over 200 e-books; we can find out availability and cost of e-versions of your recommended texts and help you decide whether we should buy them for our growing collection.

You can upload digital copies of essential chapters/articles into your Vision modules – check out our Scanning Service or contact us for more details.

Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian

Academic staff – send us your Reading Lists

As you prepare your courses for 2009/2010, please remember to send the Library a copy of the Reading Lists you will be giving to your students.

Why do we need your reading lists?

We need to be sure that the Library has copies of all the books you will be recommending to your students next year. We need details of all your recommended reading so that we can ensure we have copies of all the books you recommend, and that we have enough copies for the number of students in your classes.

What do we do with your lists?

We check to make sure we have all the books on your lists.

We order any books which we do not already have.

We order additional copies of books where you indicate large numbers of students in your classes.

We can find out whether anything on your list is available as an e-book.

We inform you if any of the books on your list are out of print, or otherwise unavailable, so you can consider alternative recommendations.

How are these books paid for?

We use the central Course Book Fund to buy books to support teaching. Books on your reading list will be charged to this fund.

What should you do?

Please send your lists to Eve Dick in Riccarton Library. Please give the approximate number of students expected to take the course, so we can order multiple copies if necessary.

Did you know?

We can also make digitised copies of essential chapters, articles etc. available for uploading into Vision through our Scanning Service. Contact us for more details of how you can make essential reading available to your students 24/7.

Please remember

We need advance warning of any books which you will recommend to your students – tell us before you tell them!

Thanks!
Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian

My reading list – the sequel

© MrsMaze Flickr.com

In this follow-up to My reading list – what does it all mean? – find out how to recognise different types of reading material on your reading list and get tips on how to find these in the library.

Let’s imagine these items are on your reading list -

Nimmo, F., Hart, S. D., Korycansky, D. G. and Agnor, D.B. (2008). Implications of an impact origin for the martian hemispheric dichotomy. Nature, 453 (7199), 1220-1223.

This is a journal article,  made up of the following parts -

authors of the article

year the article was published

title of the article

title of the journal the article appears in

volume number (issue/part number) of the journal, page numbers the article appears on

Laurie, H. and Gershuny, J. (2000). Couples, work and money. In: Seven years in the lives of British families. (Berthoud, R. and Gershuny, J., eds). Policy Press.

This is a book chapter, made up of the following parts

authors of the chapter

year the book was published

title of the chapter

title of the book

editors of the book

publisher name

 

You can use all this information to find the item you need using the library catalogue.

For the book chapter, search for the book title and/or book editor/s-  not the chapter title or chapter author.  Check the edition and/or publication year in the catalogue results against the details on your reading list to make sure you’re selecting the appropriate item.

To find the book on the shelf, use the class number you find in the catalogue e.g. 301.42 BER. We use the Dewey Decimal Classification system to organise our books. Using this sytem, the number represents the subject of the book and the letters are the first three letters of the author’s/ editor’s surname.  All our books are organised numerically by the class numbers – on Level 3 of the library (apart from 3 hour loan items which are behind the service desk. Oh, and reference books, which are on Level 2).  The class number is shown on a label on the spine of each book.  To find the chapter within the book, use the contents page to locate the relevant start page.

To find journals in the catalogue, search on the title of the journal (the catalogue won’t give information on articles within journals).

To find the journal on the shelf, use the class number you find in the catalogue e.g. Periodicals 505.  Here again, the number represents the subject area.  Our journals (or periodicals) are shelved on Levels 1 and 4 of the library – with the science and technology journals on Level 4 and the Social Science journals on Level 1.  A label on the spine of each journal gives the class number for that item. Again, use the table of contents of the journal issue to locate the relevant start page for the article you’re looking for.

You’ll also find electronic books and journals in the catalogue. These don’t have a physical location in the library, so won’t have a class number. Instead, there will be a link out to the book or journal homepage from the catalogue record.  You might need passwords for some of our online resources and information on these will be given in the catalogue record of the item you want to access.

If you can’t find what you want or it all goes a bit wrong, you can use the catalogue help pages, get help in the library in person,  email libhelp@hw.ac.uk, phone ext 3582 or use the IM/Chat service.

That’s all there is to it!

Miss Dewey

My reading list – what does it all mean?

 

© MrsMaze Flickr.com

OK. You’ve arrived at University, and now you need to get started on your course work (bah!).  You’ve probably got a reading list of things you need to get hold of (and read!).  But what does all the stuff on your reading list mean, and how does it help you find what you need?

Let’s imagine these books are on your reading list -

Housecroft, C.E. and Constable, E.C. (2006). Chemistry – an introduction to organic, inorganic and physical chemistry. 3rd ed. Pearson. 

Berthoud, R. and Gershuny, J. eds (2000). Seven years in the lives of British families. Policy Press.

Stallings, W. (2007). Data and computer communications. 8th ed. Prentice Hall.

Sounds like an unusual course!  And, of course, your reading lists won’t be multicoloured like this one –  but here’s what it all means -

Who wrote the book (authors) 

Who edited the book (editors – shortened to eds)

When the book was published (publication year)
What the book is called (book title)

How many times the book has been revised and republished (edition number)

Who published the book (publisher)

These who, what and when details of a book are called the bibliographic details. You can use all this information to find the item you need by searching on author and / or word from the title in the library catalogue.  Check the edition or publication year in the catalogue against the ones on your list – and you’re on your way! 

To find the book on the shelf, use the class number you find in the catalogue e.g. 301.42 BER.  In the class number, the number represents the subject of the book and the letters are the first three letters of the author’s surname.  All our books are organised numerically by the class numbers – on Level 3 of the library (apart from 3 hour loan items which are behind the service desk). A label on the spine of each book gives the class number for that item.

If you can’t find what you want, or it all goes a bit wrong, you can use the catalogue help pages, ask in the library, email libhelp@hw.ac.uk, phone ext 3582 or get in touch using our  IM/chat service.

Miss Dewey