Tag: #author:James

Waving goodbye to REF 2021

Last week, staff in the Library waved off 12 boxes of books and other publications authored by current and former Durham staff as a final (for now) step in our university’s REF submission. This submission involved a huge commitment from staff across the university, across professional support and academic departments. Colleagues from across Durham University Library and Collections service have been involved in collecting publications, enabling open access and reviewing compliance with REF requirements, supporting Impact case studies and providing support for our poor academic colleagues tasked with drafting Research Environment statements.

Here we provide some brief figures to show some of the effort made to be able to wave off the final boxes one sunny morning last week…

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Foraging for theses

Recent headlines have highlighted concerns over unscrupulous third parties attempting to make money off the back of researchers by attempting to sell (for pennies) copies of Masters and Doctoral theses online. These have been taken from universities around the UK, including Durham University, and resold without permission (and often in breach of copyright). But for many years, Durham and other universities around the world have endeavoured to provide free access to theses, moving from what was previously rows of shelves of hard bound theses in our libraries, to digital repositories sharing the knowledge and expertise of our community online.

We often get asked by students, staff and others outside of the university if we have a specific theses available, or how to access theses and dissertations more generally, so we thought we’d highlight some of the resources available to you and why we make our theses available.

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Going beyond your reading list…

photo of people collaboratively working

Last week we introduced a range of new Guides available for staff and students across the University, and yesterday we highlighted some of the features you may have missed in our new Reading Lists platform. Today we’d like to highlight the support available to you on our Research Skills Guide to help you navigate the collections and resources available to you beyond your reading list. Read on to find out more…

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Making the most of your reading list

white book in white table near yellow wall

As term is now underway, many of our new and returning students and colleagues will have been exploring our new Reading Lists. We thought we’d take this opportunity to highlight and explore some of the additional functionality they offer to you – from adding notes, to managing your reading progress and references for your bibliography.

To help, we spoke to one of our Faculty Librarians, Richard Holmes, who was part of a team of colleagues across the service who got this up and running in record time for the start of term.

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RLUK Collections: a virtual tour of our shared treasures

Durham University Library and Collections is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK), a consortium of the most significant research libraries in the UK and Ireland. As many members entered lockdown in March, Dr David Prosser (Executive Director of RLUK) took a virtual tour of RLUK member’s special collections via Twitter (#RLUKCollections), including those at Durham University, to highlight just a small selection of the extensive, diverse, and unique collections held within the member libraries and archives.

We have (with permission) highlighted here Durham’s brief entry, and provided links to each of the others, as an opportunity to quickly sample some of the many treasures held within the British Isles.

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University Library & Collections Staff @home in Durham, Barnard Castle and other world famous locations.

As with so many of our colleagues across the University, over the last couple of months (has it really been that long??) many University Library & Collections staff have been getting used to saying hello to each other through a computer screen, rather than over a cup of coffee in the staff room or across a desk at the start of the working day.

Whilst we miss our conversations with staff and students within our libraries and museums, and across university sites, we hope you’ve been making use of the range of expanded online services we’ve been able to offer over this period. This post offers a reminder of some of those services we provide, alongside a sneak peak inside some of our working-from-home lives.

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Having issues accessing articles off campus?

We all have those moments, having found 5 minutes where we can actually read that journal article our friend/colleague/supervisor/lecturer/mum sent us. We might be nestled in our nice comfy chair, laptop at the ready. Or we may be perched uncomfortably between the washing machine and fridge; the safest place to steal a few moments peace and quiet from the increasingly feral children running rampant through our homes.

And then it happens. That journal article, in the journal we know we could access at the click of a mouse when we were on campus, tells us we have to pay $38 to have 24 hours access. Why can’t it be easy? Why!!?

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A (Global) National Emergency Library

The Internet Archive is a huge resource, used by many students and researchers across Durham University (we suspect some without realising what a treasure trove they have stumbled upon). It provides immediate access to:

But during the current Global Covid-19 Pandemic, their services for displaced scholars globally have temporarily removed a further barrier to access to one of their services…

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Who needs Disney+ ?

So, after watching the latest Government announcement this evening I was looking for some lighter entertainment to take the edge off the rest of the day, only to realise as I tried unsuccessfully to find the Disney Plus App on the Smart TV, that I was still a day too early.

Luckily, as a University Library we offer online access to far more than ‘just’ books and journal articles, newspapers and theses. We can provide you with access to an archive of over 2 million tv broadcasts from ‘classic’ episodes of Eastenders and Hollyoaks (thats’s still a thing, right? And Tony is still in it?), through to Disney favourites including Dumbo, Bambi and The Bridge to Terabithia. Or maybe, given the times we’re living in, something a bit more cheery, like Toy Story 1,2 or 3, or all of the movies in the Halloween Franchise?

Read on…

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