The University Examinations period will extend from Monday 27 March to Friday 9 June 2023. During this time, the Library amends its visitor policy.
Access for members of the public will be restricted to weekends only. This is to ensure that our students have exclusive access to the study spaces that they need throughout this period.
For more information on visiting the Library as a member of the public, please visit the ‘Members of the Public’ page on our website.
Your Library Team
Like many students, you may be experiencing a new type of exam this year: the ‘online exam’. In due course, you’ll be informed about what this means for your course and we urge you to follow the advice your lecturers give you. Below are our Study Advice tips about revising and preparing for this form of assessment
Right now, you should be revising as you would normally for your modules. Make a revision timetable (see video) and start going over the content. You won’t have long between having the paper and submitting your answer. So now is the time to reflect on what you’ve learnt. It’s also important that you revise according to the type of exam you’re taking: we have videos covering all types of exams, from MCQs to essay-based exams, to help guide you.
Make your revision as active as possible using a variety of techniques: make an online study group with friends, mind map the content, use post-it notes and revision cards to test key concepts. Whilst your exams may be in a different form to some previous years, you can still make effective use of past papers to test your understanding and application of knowledge. Above all, don’t waste time re-writing out your notes or just reading through content; these are passive techniques and are unlikely to help!
It’s likely that you won’t have long to submit your answers, once you are given the paper. Make sure you create a system for organising your notes on any particular subject; you’re going to want to access the most relevant information as quickly as you can.
It’s OK to revise with others (in fact this can be an effective way of testing yours and your friend’s understanding) but once you have been issued with the paper, it’s important that you work on it alone. You will be asked to submit your work through Turnitin, which will match your work with others that have been submitted, as well as information from the internet, books and journals. Make sure it’s all your own work, as you would for any other assessment.
You may be given a set time to sit the exam and submit your answers. Make sure you are fully prepared beforehand by:
Good luck!
Ask our experts for support at the Study Advice and Maths support desk, Library, Ground Floor weekdays 10:00 – 16:00 or get in touch online.
Get to know your Academic Liaison Librarian, there’s one for every subject offered at Reading. They can support you in making effective use of the huge range of resources the Library has to offer for your studies.
Make the most of their advice by:
Stay ahead of the curve and find your Academic Liaison Librarian on the Library website now.
Jackie Skinner FHEA
Academic Liaison Librarian
In the morning, on Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 February, DTS have organised for contractors to install extra Wi-Fi access points in the group study area on the 2nd Floor of the Library. The work will be noisy because they will be drilling into the concrete ceiling. The good news is, these extra access points should improve Wi-Fi connectivity in the building,
Please bear with us through this short period of disruption.
Whilst the work takes place, the area will be closed but if you still find the rest of the floor too noisy remember there is a range of alternative study space on campus to choose from, including
Visit Student essentials, Study space for more information about study spaces and locations.
Your Library team
This month is LGBT+ History month, an opportunity to learn about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and non-binary history, and we wanted to share some resources with you all…
LGBT+ Guide
LGBT+ is an area of research that covers a wide range of academic disciplines so we would like to highlight the online guide to support research into LGBT+-related topics.
Taking the same format as our subject guides this guide focuses on the range of materials available from the Library and Special Collections relating to LGBT+ topics.
It is one of a series of cross-disciplinary research guides we have developed to support research in areas such as disability and inclusion, gender, and race and ethnicity.
It has been created, in consultation with staff and student representatives, to help you find some of the key resources the Library can provide in this area, as well as point you towards other useful online resources, libraries and archives.
We’d love to hear your feedback on the guide, so let us know what you think!
Have you explored our collection of LGBT+ film resources?
Suggest resources to help diversify our collections
You can also help us to continue to diversify the Library’s collections by putting forward your suggestions.
If you would like to suggest other items for the Library, please complete our regular book suggestion form.
You can see all the Diversity fund titles purchased in current and previous academic years on our dedicated Library Diversity fund reading lists.
Tim Chapman,
Library Diversity and Inclusion Lead
Tomorrow our Library Management System is undergoing scheduled maintenance. During the maintenance window on Wednesday 1 February 22:30 to 22:50 some services will be at risk.
You will still be able to …
But at times you won’t be able to log into Enterprise to …
If you have trouble accessing e-resources, you can contact the E-resources Team at eresourceshelp@reading.ac.uk or you can fill in a Problem Report Form.
If you want to talk to someone about your account, you can contact the Library at library@reading.ac.uk.
Lewis Mills – Library Systems Team
Next week our Library Management System is undergoing scheduled maintenance. During the maintenance window on Tuesday 24 January 23:00 to Wednesday 25 January 00:30 some services will be at risk.
You will still be able to …
But at times you won’t be able to …
If you have trouble accessing e-resources you can contact the E-resources Team at eresourceshelp@reading.ac.uk or you can fill in a Problem Report Form.
If you want to talk to someone about your account you can contact the Library at library@reading.ac.uk.
Lewis Mills – Library Systems Team
Find out how the Library can support you in your studies
Happy New Year! Are you gearing up for success this term? Your Library team looks forward to continuing to support you with your studies so bookmark these pages to really get going.
Whether you need advice or simply want to improve your chances of getting excellent results, our Academic Liaison Librarians and the Study Advisers will be happy to help. Visit our training and workshops webpage for details of the sessions that you can sign up for this term.
How are you finding our study areas? Study space is available on all floors of the Library, including individual silent study on the 5th Floor. If you’re concerned about noise levels, please use our NOISYCHAT service and help us keep our dedicated silent area silent.
Want to know more about booking a group study room? Watch our YouTube video (or watch on Yuja) and also see our Instagram tour to discover your favourite space.
We have over 1,500 study spaces in the Library. This term we’ll be getting much busier so at peak times, you might want to know where else you can find study space. Visit Student essentials to find out about other spaces on campus.
Last term, we saw a significant increase in littering. We’d really appreciate your help with keeping the building clean and tidy this term. You can do this by eating in the Library Café or other suitable areas on campus. Eating is not allowed in the Library and hot food should not be brought in at any time as it creates unpleasant smells and disrupts other Library users. Please continue to use lidded containers when bringing in drinks and take care to avoid spills. We have fantastic recycling facilities for single use cups, plastic bottles and other items so if you aren’t already an avid recycler, our handy facilities can help you begin.
Remember to bring your Campus Card with you and keep it with you when visiting the Library. It’s really important that we know who is in the building for health and safety purposes; scanning your card in and out helps us to keep you, your peers and other Library users safe.
More information about the Library rules and policies can be found here.
Your Library Team
Whether you’re on-campus or heading home this Christmas, make sure you know about the upcoming changes to our opening hours and plan ahead!
When will the Library be open?
Getting ready for the Christmas holidays? Make sure you plan ahead!
The Library will be operating on reduced opening hours after term ends on Friday 9 December.
When do I need to return my books?
You can borrow right up until the University Christmas closure. Standard loans can be borrowed for up to 6 weeks, but items may still be recalled until Friday 16 December. Please keep an eye on your University email account (and your Junk folder) for any recalls notices so that you can avoid fines.
Last collections before Christmas closure
If you want items which are not on the open shelves before Christmas, make sure that you get your requests in on time!
Find the request button on the right of your screen on your PC. For mobile, select from the vertical dots.
Normal service will resume on Tuesday 3 January with our first Closed Access collection happening on Wednesday 4 January. Our first Off-site Store collection will occur on Thursday 5 January.
For more information and detailed instructions on how to make Closed Access and Store requests, check out the ‘Requesting items from Store and Closed Access‘ information page.
Accessing online information
If you’re very keen to continue your studies during the University closure don’t worry, our Subject guides and Study Advice guides are always available online. Or why not get a head start by:
Give yourself the gift of time to recharge. Photo by tijana drndarsk
Keep on top of your studies but don’t forget to enjoy a well-deserved break!
Happy Holidays to you all.
Your Library team
Every November, thousands of men grow moustaches for charity. The annual event Movember aims to ‘change the face of men’s health’ by raising awareness and funds, particularly in the three key areas of prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health, including suicide prevention. Through November we’ve been been posting on social media to provide a round up of some of the best moustaches of literature and scholarship! Which of these writers would you award the Mo Throne?
The enormous beard and moustache combination has been a popular look going back centuries. Symbolic of age and wisdom, it’s been sported by figures as illustrious as Tolstoy and Tagore, Verne and Darwin, Gandalf and Dumbledore.
But then, could a beard and a moustache be considered cheating? It isn’t Novembeard. Can the beard be permitted to overshadow the moustache in its month of triumph? Twain wrote, in an essay called ‘The lowest animal’ or sometimes ‘Man’s place in the animal world’: “What is his beard for? It performs no useful function; it is a nuisance and a discomfort; all nations hate it; all nations persecute it with the razor. And because it is a nuisance and a discomfort, Nature never allows the supply of it to fall short, in any man’s case, between puberty and the grave. You never see a man bald-headed on his chin.”
The moustache without beard, fortunately, is also a popular look among the literary greats! The beard without moustache is… let’s say it’s a more risky fashion choice. At the other end of the scale, many authors have favoured the perhaps more modern approach of the understated, yet often distinguished, chevron or pencil moustache. In George Orwell’s six rules for writing, listed in his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, he advises would-be authors to “Never use a long word where a short one will do”, and he evidently applied the same rule to his upper lip. Shakespeare in his sole inarguable portrait in the First Folio wears a thin pencil moustache, and can you have a better examplar than Shakespeare?
As Poirot, possessor of possibly the most famous moustache in literature and certainly the one most cherished by its host, advises his good friend Hastings in ‘Peril at End House’, “If you must have a moustache, let it be a real moustache – a thing of beauty such as mine.” Poirot’s definition of a ‘real moustache’ is as idiosyncratic as he is himself, of course, but many writers would agree with him.
Which writer would you award the ‘Best Moustache Ever’ prize to? Let us know via Twitter or Instagram!
You can find out more about Movember at their website, and you can find information on the library and university’s mental health resources in this blog post:
This UK Disability History Month, check out the Library’s guide to disability and inclusion-related topics.
The guide takes the same format as our other subject guides but focuses on materials from across our Library and Special Collections, as well as pointing you towards other useful online resources, libraries and archives.
Bookmark our guide for a wealth of information
Visit our dedicated Library Diversity fund reading lists to see Diversity fund titles purchased in current and previous academic years and help us to build this important collection.
Can you help us diversify Library collections further by suggesting books, DVDs, topics or authors for purchase? We’re keen to hear from you if you notice an area you feel is currently underrepresented. Just complete our Diversify our collections suggestion form and we’ll do the rest!
Library Diversity & Inclusion Group
Take the pain out of referencing by learning to use a reference management system. We are offering workshops on using EndNote and Mendeley at the following times.
Click on the links below to book your place.
Desktop EndNote is a comprehensive reference management system. You can download accurate references from many databases, such as Web of Science. Use the ‘Find Full-text’ feature to automatically download and attach PDFs for those references. Use the Word plugin to insert in-text citations and watch the bibliography grow automatically. Select from thousands of referencing styles or create your own – great if you’re writing for publication. Download it free on your own computer via the IT Self-Service Portal.
See our EndNote guide to find out more.
Mendeley Reference Manager is designed to make storing references and PDFs as simple as possible. You can drag and drop PDFs directly into your library or use its Web Importer to capture details of websites and other sources. If you work a lot with article PDFs, Mendeley is a good option for you.
See our Mendeley guide to find out more.
Sign up to the workshops here. If you can’t make any of the specified sessions but would like to know more, take a look at our reference management guide or contact your Academic Liaison Librarian.
Karen Drury
Academic Liaison Librarian
