Monthly Archives: February 2016

Where there is tea, there is hope

Everyone uses different things to relax. For around two hundred years, a popular way to take a break has been to have a cup of tea. In fact, this website suggests that people in Britain drink about 165 million cups of tea a day!

Today we were contributing to that staggering number by handing out teabags to students. We had a variety of relaxing blends to choose from:

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While hot drinks and books definitely don’t mix, we hope that our Takeaway Teabags reminded students to take a break and let them know that their library cares about them! Maybe they could enjoy the rare winter sunshine today by having a little tea party, like the McKendricks are doing in this image from our collections:

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Tea Party with McKendricks, http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/wl6b77 © The University of Edinburgh, 

We will be popping up in the Main Library Foyer with another popular relaxation activity next week, so if you don’t like tea (or you just like bubble wrap!), keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter!

100 Great Ideas

We’re always thinking of ways to improve the library, and today we’ve been asking for your ideas.  As part of Innovative Learning Week, we’ve been in the foyer today trying to get 100 ideas for what could make this space better.

We even made a little Lego model of the foyer – do you recognise it?

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We want to hear any ideas that you have, and some of them have been a little bit crazy!  Anyone fancy a slide from the first floor down to the ground?  Or maybe a Library yurt?

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There have been lots of great suggestions though, how about some library beanbags?  Or some thought provoking challenges to get your brain working as you come in to the Library before you have to study?

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There is still time to contribute your ideas, either visit the library today, or contact us on Facebook or Twitter and let us know what you’d like to see here!

 

All you need is library love

As Valentine’s Day approaches this weekend, we want to let all students know that their library loves them!

We were down in the Library Foyer today handing out origami hearts that we made this week, and inviting students to give it a go:

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Origami is a great way to take a break from studying, and it only takes six minutes of quiet activity to relax you. The hearts are so easy that you could make a couple in that time! You can find the instructions for the bigger hearts here, and the little bookmark hearts here.

These students all had a great time doing it!

collage for blog

If you do make a heart, take a photo and show us on Facebook or Twitter! Make sure to follow us as well, because we will be posting about more fun events in the Library Foyer in the coming weeks! Library love is all around!

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Mockingbirds and Cuckoos

The library’s most borrowed books are all textbooks. Of course it is important that our library acts as a resource, but what can it offer you after you have completed your reading from Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine? Certainly, we have more than textbooks here!

We compiled a list of some novels and autobiographies that the library holds. From Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl to Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, this list is full of great, thought-provoking reads:

  • Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (PS3554.I259 Dia.)
  • Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated (PS3606.O38 Foe.)
  • Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (DS135.N6 Fra.)
  • Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (PS3558.E476 Hel. )
  • Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (PS3561.E667 Kes. )
  • Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (PG5039.21.U6 Kun.)
  • Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (PS3562.E353 Lee. )
  • Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (DT1949.M35 Man.)
  • George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (PR6029.R8 Orw.)
  • Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture (QA76.2.P38 Pau.)
  • J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (PS3537.A426 Sal.)
  • Kathryn Stockett, The Help (PS3619.T636 Sto.)

We were in the foyer of the Main Library today asking students which book on the list they found most inspiring. To Kill a Mockingbird was the clear winner, while One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Catch-22 were tied for second place, closely followed by The Catcher in the Rye.

Do you agree? Tell us which of these books you find most inspiring! Haven’t read them? It only takes six minutes of quiet reading to relax you, so borrow one from the library and start today! You never know what might come from it.

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