Study space at Whiteknights this Bank Holiday weekend

For students looking to study on Whiteknights campus this weekend, Saturday 29 April, Sunday 30 April and Monday 1 May:

  • Study space in the URS Building will be open 24-hours (except Saturday night). Please speak to Library staff if you need help finding a space.
  • The Library Building is also open 09:00-22:00 for access to books.
  • RUSU’s The Study will also be open 08:00-21:00 on these days.
  • If you want access to a computer, you can access 24-hour labs in other buildings with your Campus Card:
    • Agriculture (GL20) – 30 PCs
    • Meteorology (GL68) – 20 PCs
    • Palmer (G09) – 20 PCs

For further information about weekday alternative study spaces, check out the ‘FIND STUDY SPACE BEYOND THE LIBRARY’ section on the Library Refurbishment Project page

Rachel Redrup, Library Marketing Co-ordinator

Leavers! Settle up before you go

It will soon be time to close one account… and maybe open another?

Settle up before you go!

If you are graduating this summer then please don’t forget to return your loans and clear your account before you go. If you have any outstanding fines or bills you can pay online via the Campus Card Portal or at the Ground Floor Information Desk now situated in the URS Building.

Before you leave don’t forget to return:

  • Standard loan, 7-day loan and journal items to the Library Building
  • Course Collection items to the URS Building

Money left on your card?

Save the pennies and avoid having any leftover money on your Campus Card at the end of your course. When you top-up your card via the Campus Card Portal there is now no minimum amount you have to spend. This means you can top-up exactly what you need to see you through to the end of term!

Membership after you graduate

If you are interested in borrowing from the University Library after you graduate, annual Library membership is half-price at £45! Alternatively, if you are beginning a new course at UoR next session you can apply for membership over the summer for a reduced charge of £20. Registrations for membership can be made at the Ground Floor Information Desk in the URS Building.

Lucy Shott, Library User Services

Library study space now located in URS Building

blue sofas and tables and chairs

One of the new group study rooms relocated to the URS Building.

Much of the study furniture from the Library has relocated to the URS Building. It now provides students with a contemporary and versatile space to work and study – including around 800 spaces (145 computers), work areas for collaborative, quiet and silent study, and several key facilities from the Library Building.

Including URS, students can now access over 1,700 study spaces across our Whiteknights and London Road campuses.

URS Building key features

  • Library Information Desk: For general and registration enquiries, located on the Ground Floor.
  • Study space: A variety of study areas – group, quiet and silent – are available on the Ground and 2nd Floors.
  • Study Advice and Maths Support: Get help with study skills and maths on the Ground Floor.
  • Course Collection: Find key texts for your modules in the Course Collection on the Ground Floor.  Holds are also available to collect here.
  • IT Service Desk and facilities: PCs and printing facilities are available on the Ground Floor.  If you need help, just ask at the IT Service Desk there.
  • Café Libro: The Library’s popular café is located on the 2nd Floor of the URS Building.
  • Opening Hours: The URS Building will adopt the 24 hour opening during term (except closing 21:00 Saturday to 08:30 Sunday) as is currently the case in the Library.

Take a look at the map and floor directory to see what’s been moved where.

Preparation of space

Furniture being moved form outside the Library, passing hoardings

Vitra staff moved and reassembled our modern study furniture in URS

The relocation was carried out over the Easter vacation – during this time, several new improvements were made to the URS Building in order to make its study environment as welcoming as possible:

  • Rooms have been configured to meet a wide range of study needs – you’ll find individual study booths, group areas, quiet study spaces and more.
  • We have improved several of the building’s existing features in order to make it a better place to study – new lights have been fitted to make studying easier, and south-facing windows on the Second Floor have been tinted to deflect heat.
  • We have balanced creating a maximum number of spaces with ensuring that students can study in comfort and safety. Health & Safety guidelines recommend that URS holds a maximum capacity of 800 students.
  • Our job as a University is to provide students with comfortable spaces to study, and we believe that URS will prove to be a popular home to Library study space until summer 2018, when facilities will move back into the Library Building.

Why has the space moved?

Relocating study space and facilities from one to building to another posed several benefits.

Moving study space from the Library into URS will provide a quieter environment for study while still being close enough to borrow and use materials. It also means we can carry out more work inside the Library than previously planned, and so will complete the refurbishment around six months earlier.

With URS in such close proximity to the Library, you won’t have far to take the materials you’ve just borrowed from the original Library building for studying.

Library Building key features

The Library remains open for use – inside you will still find:

  • Printed materials: All printed material (other than Course Collection) will remain inside the Library for borrowing or reference.
  • Library staff: Although Library staff are now based in URS, they will still offer a Help Point by the Library entrance and Information Desks on the 2nd and 4th Floors.
  • Opening Hours: The Library Building will open 09:00-22:00 seven days per week during term time. URS will be open 24/6+ during term time (closed Saturday nights).

Construction work will continue in the Library Building whilst we strive to complete the project as soon as possible, so you may experience considerable noise whilst using this building.

Alternative study space across campus

Including URS, there are approximately 1,700 spaces to study on campus (subject to teaching timetabling and departmental use).

Keep in touch

While we have taken great care to ensure that URS meets your needs, we appreciate that there may be more to improve over the coming weeks. Please pass on any feedback or comments to library@reading.ac.uk.

Further information

A dedicated URS Building page has been created to help clarify exactly what has moved from the Library. It will be kept updated by our Library team, who will also share regular news and updates via the Library blog. The Library opening hours page lists opening times for both the Library and URS buildings.

Further details of the Library’s major £40 million refurbishment can be found on our Library Refurbishment Project webpage: www.reading.ac.uk/library/refurb.

Rachel Redrup, Library Marketing Co-ordinator
for University Communications

UoR Staff! Suggest titles to diversify stock

Drawing of books piled up and swathed in chainsThe Library is now opening up to UoR staff the chance to suggest books, DVDs or CDs to help Library collections support a more diverse curriculum. Students were given first choice in March to celebrate RUSU’s ‘Liberate my curriculum’ conference. But hurry, the deadline is 30 April 2017.

Would you like more on your specialism representing more ethnic or LBGT groups or geographical areas? Complete our new Diversify my curriculum suggestion form to help us spend a special £1,000 fund, over and above resources supporting existing reading lists.

It’s great if you can suggest specific titles, but we still want to hear from you where you feel we just need more in a certain area. For example:

  • [name] is underrepresented in your collection, can you buy more of her novels/poetry?
  • I would like more books on the construction industry in Africa – are there any that can be bought?
  • there aren’t any books on the history/political situation in [country]
  • can you purchase some more books on LBGT issues in higher education?

Your subject Liaison Librarian will be dealing with your suggestions. She or he can also help you with other Library matters, including queries about items on reading lists.

If you would like to suggest other items for the Library, please complete our regular book suggestion form.

Rachel Redrup, Marketing Co-ordinator
for Helen Hathaway, Associate Director (Academic Liaison and Support)

Problems accessing Oxford Academic from off-campus

We are currently experiencing problems using the Institutional Sign In feature on the Oxford Academic platform. You should only need to use this Sign In on the Oxford Academic site when off-campus, so on-campus users should not be affected.

When a user links to an article on the Oxford Academic platform via Summon, the Summon ‘frame’ prevents the Institutional Sign In link on the site from working – nothing will happen when you click the ‘Sign In’ link. To work around this problem, please click the ‘Open content in a new tab’ button in the Summon sidebar, as indicated below. This should open the page in a new tab, and you should be able to click ‘Sign In’ successfully.

Oxford Academic Sign In screenshot

If you navigate to the platform via a route other than Summon, e.g. the E-Journals Finder you should not experience this problem.

We are working with the supplier to fix this, and hope the issue will be resolved soon.

If you have trouble accessing any online resources, please contact us via an E-resources problem report form.

 

Lucy Ardill, E-resources Team

 

Out-of-hours virtual enquiry service

It’s fine to contact UoR Library staff during staffed service hours, but what can you do out-of-staffed-hours overnight, or when the Library Building is closed (such as during the University Easter Closure 12-17 April)? From today, you chat online via the blue ‘Virtual Enquiry Service’ box appearing on the Library webpage at these times!

This service is staffed by professional librarians working remotely to answer your queries from our website and other information we’ve supplied.  You can keep an email transcript of the chat. If they can’t resolve a particular issue they’ll refer you back to us during staffed hours.

UoR Library has subscribed to this service in the third tranche of UK higher education libraries to join under a SCONUL agreement with OCLC.

Rachel Redrup, Marketing Co-ordinator for
Sue Egleton, Associate Director (Systems & User Services)