Issue 1, October 2008
Welcome message from Chris Banks, University Librarian
I’m delighted to welcome you to this first issue of HeadLines, a newsletter aimed at keeping you informed of news and developments in Library & Historic Collections. We hope you find it useful and relevant and we will welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues. During the year we will be offering opportunities for staff and students to come and hear about the plans for the new library building and to contribute to discussions about layout, organisation and facilities. We are keen to hear your views as all these willl help with the planning process and hope that you will be willing to contribute.
New library news |
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'Bob the Builder' hard hats will be in high profile as work on Queen Mother Library in preparation for the new library build enters a new phase this month ..... A report from Wendy Pirie, Library Services Manager
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Phase One in our new Library construction (due for completion in 2011) started in September. A wing of the existing Queen Mother Library will be demolished shortly to enable the contractors to clear the site and begin building. It's now business as usual for some facilities which were relocated over the vacation because of the upcoming demolition. On the Ground Floor .....
On Floor 1 .....
We apologise in advance for some unavoidable noise and disruption over the coming months, particularly from now until January 2009 and in April/May 2009. Building works will continue for the next two years and consideration is already being given to establishing alternative study accommodation in the run-up to exams in 2009. |
And then we were five: Rowett's Reid Library joins the University ... |
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... following the Rowett Research Institute merging with the University on 1 July 08 The staff and collections of the Institute's Reid Library have been added to the University's Library & Historic Collections and work is ongoing to enable seamless access to both collections The Reid Library has significant resources in human and animal nutrition which complement the medical and medical sciences collections already held at the University of Aberdeen. Library materials can be delivered to all University of Aberdeen library sites through our Inter-branch service. The Reid Library is open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. For further online details see |
Major new online resources added to the collection |
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With one full text item downloaded every 29 seconds throughout the year we anticipate the rate will rise even further following the acquisition of new electronic resources. Susan McCourt, Principal Information Consultant |
Staff and students at the University now have electronic access to a significantly expanded collection of full-text books, journals and reference works from some of the biggest academic publishers, all of which can be used both on and off campus.
These files are available now from the supplier’s home web site. Records are being added and updated within the library catalogue, SFX and MetaLib. Further details on these new acquisitions and how to access them are available on the Library's New Resources pages. |
Towards a ‘one stop shop’ - making the library home page functional |
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Applications Support Manager, Anne Beavan, outlines an exciting new concept for the library home page ...
Before we launch this as the official home page we would welcome your feedback. |
Over the next academic session we will improve the Library & Historic Collections (L&HC) Web pages as part of a University-wide project to revamp central Web design. To help prepare for this we have added a core of search options to the L&HC pages which allow you to:
All without having to hunt through several pages for the right search tool, giving you direct access to some great resources. Looking for a book or journal? Now you’ll have instant access to the library catalogue, without having to logon. Need a more complex search? A link to the full catalogue is available from the same page. We also want to raise the profile of search tools you might not know of, like the Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue and DigiTool, (see Exam Papers are Go!). We plan to launch our new home page in early 2009 but a beta test page for you to try will be launched even sooner – look out for an email message, or 'Message of the Day', containing a link. |
Look out for Google books on the library catalogue |
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| A report from Anne Beavan, Applications Support Manager.
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An upgrade over the summer has allowed us to create links to Google Books for items in the library catalogue. From Google Books you may be able to read an abstract or table of contents, you can find online reviews or references, or even buy a copy. You will see an example if you click on this link for 'The economics of infectious disease', edited by Jennifer A. Roberts. It takes you to the Results page on the library catalogue. Click on the title of the book to get the full view of the record. You will then see an icon and link to Google Books at the left of the page. Click on this link to view information on the book. For more examples see: |
Online exam papers have a new home! |
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Students and staff now have access to our new and improved past exam papers database. Liz Mackie, Law Librarian and Site Services Manager for Taylor Library and European Documentation Centre
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We have been concerned over the past year or so about the functionality of the existing exam papers database. It was old, outdated, and often difficult to search. To make life easier, a decision was made to move the exam papers of the past five years into our modern storage system for digital resources - Digitool . Liz Mackie tells us more ..... Over the summer, library and computing staff have been working hard to achieve a seamless transition from the existing database to DigiTool, the Library’s Digital Asset Management System. DigiTool allows the user to view and access all available papers for a specific course from one screen while retaining the existing search options of subject, department, course code or keyword. Exam papers can now be accessed from the library web pages via the Exam Papers link. A library information guide about searching for exam papers on Digitool is available online and at Library sites. |
Power to your portable ..... |
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164 new electrical power sockets were installed in the Queen Mother Library over the summer vacation to allow you to plug in and recharge laptop computers as you work. The sockets are located on or near reading tables throughout Floors 1 to 4. |
Official Papers are on the move… |
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Liz Mackie
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Great strides have been made in making the British parliamentary papers accessible online, allowing us to preserve this valuable collection in a more secure environment. A report from Liz Mackie ... The House of Commons Sessional Papers from 1730-1910, part of the Official Papers collection, are to be moved to our secure closed-access store at Holland Street. Extensive parliamentary papers are now available online as an accessible alternative to paper copies, helping to preserve the original documents. The 18th Century Official Parliamentary Publications collections include material published between 1688 and 1834, while the Chadwyck Healey House of Commons Parliamentary Papers databases cover the period 1688 to 2004. The last time the Official Papers collection moved was in 1996, from the Queen Mother Library basement to the upgraded Taylor Library. If you still wish to use the printed versions then just request the papers you need using the library catalogue , or for more information contact the Official Publications Help Desk in the Taylor Library (Tel: 01224 273334, Email: e.a.mackie@abdn.ac.uk). |
Struggling with LexisNexis? Help is at hand .... |
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To help Law students build vital research skills the Taylor Library is to introduce Nina Rahman, an LLB Hons student, who has been trained to help students to use the Lexis Nexis Butterworths database. Dates and times when Nina is available for consultation will be posted on the Taylor notice board, and you can even arrange 1:1 training by emailing Nina at n.rahman.05@aberdeen.ac.uk. More help and advice is also available through information skills sessions, guides to resources or ask at the Taylor help desk. |
New facilties enhance services at Medical Library |
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A report from Dorothy Spence, Principal Information Assistant.
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A new Assistive Technology Suite will be opened at the start of this session. The suite will be equipped with computing resources that enable those with a requirement, for example, large format print or audio readers, to access the materials they need. For more information please contact the Medical Library Issue desk. |
Marischal Museum update |
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... despite temporary closure of displays at Marischal College the museum team stay busy. Senior Curator, Neil Curtis, reports ... Neil Curtis
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The displays at Marischal Museum are now closed while Aberdeen City Council converts the front of Marischal College into its corporate headquarters, although a virtual version of the exhibitions can still be seen. The museum continues to be very active. The University’s museum collections have recently been officially recognised as being of national significance. This has generated funding for a major documentation project as well as helping to secure a Cultural Engagement Grant for the popular service to schools, and a project which focuses on Old Aberdeen in conjunction with local schools and Aberdeen’s Reading Bus. The latter follows last terms’ project on slavery. You can see the results of this in a recently published book, and at an exhibition in the MacRobert Building (until 21st November). This year’s exhibition programme opens with Maximising Miniatures: an encounter with play worlds past and present from 19th September to 15th November 2008 in the Old Aberdeen Town House, one of three exhibitions this year that are the result of Cultural Engagement grants. Go to Museums and Collections for further information. |
Museum lectures |
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Good news for those of you who enjoy the museum evening lectures. This year they will be held in the MacRobert Building on Monday and Tuesday evenings from September to May. Senior Curator, Neil Curtis, tells us more ... Neil Curtis |
Topics in the museum evening lecture series range from local prehistory and folk-life to Ancient Egypt, Lithuania and Siberia, alongside explorations of some of the University’s museum and library collections. The programme is available as a printed leaflet and online.
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'Contentious Museum' Conference |
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Neil Curtis tells us more about an exciting conference to be hosted at the University later in the year ...
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On 20th - 21st November the University is hosting the sixth biennial University Museums in Scotland conference on the topic of The Contentious Museum. Sessions will focus on ‘Human remains and sacred items’, ‘The legacy of empire and slavery’, ‘Negotiating with communities’ and ‘The legacy of contention’. See the conference website for more details and online registration. |
Special Libraries and Archives Projects |
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Special Libraries and Archives continue to work on a number of externally-funded cataloguing projects aimed at opening up collections to researchers for the first time.
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A fifth successive award from the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Research Resources in Medical History’ scheme will enable us to catalogue the records held by Aberdeen Medico-Chirurgical Society. This is an important collection which complements the University’s own extensive medical holdings which date back to the 15th century. Following a generous grant from the Trustees of the Cluny Estate, an archivist is cataloguing the Cluny Castle Papers. Previously unavailable for consultation, listing this collection provides researchers with a unique primary resource for learning about local, economic, landscape, architectural and agrarian history. The catalogues to these, and all our other archive collections, can be searched online using the CALM database. |
Staff update: new Senior Rare Books Librarian |
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On 17th September we were delighted to welcome Keith O’Sullivan to the University as the new Senior Rare Books Librarian in Special Libraries and Archives. Keith tells us some interesting things about himself ... Keith O'Sullivan
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My reasons for coming to Aberdeen are many and varied. The key motivator was that I was inspired by the University’s breadth of ambition: a £57 million new library with rare books at its centre. The principle of serving a diverse, expanded audience – that is, both University members and a wider public – is one I have a strong affinity with. The city and the post itself also provide an exciting and much broader canvas. I wanted to re-locate to an urban centre somewhere in the north: one can say this has been emphatically achieved! The collections here are over four times as large as my previous library at Canterbury Cathedral, and rich in subject areas of particular and growing interest to me, especially literature of the Romantic and Victorian periods. I look forward to the opportunities the post affords in collaboration with other institutions, facilitating conferences and exhibition work. Outside work, I am interested in country walking, weight-lifting, cinema, theatre, UK and US politics, real ale and red wine (although not at the same time), and all kinds of music (listening, not playing!). I hope to explore as many of these as possible in this new setting. Keith will be leading developments and services with our impressive collections of rare books as we prepare for the move to the New Library, and will be extending our teaching and outreach programmes. |
If you have any comments or suggestions for features in future issues please contact us.